The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged the Federal Government to reconsider the inclusion of universities in the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
It said the accounting system has crippled the nation’s educational institutions.
ASUU said it made the request for the second time because it would not wish to be pushed to the wall before reacting.
Its coordinator, Lagos Zone, Dr. Adesola Nasir, who spoke at a news conference at the Lagos State University (LASU), said besides hampering the effective functioning of universities, TSA was capable of eroding their autonomy.
He said: “We, however, observed that the procedure would introduce heavy encumbrance into the functioning of the universities and may indeed become a burden on the system due to its peculiarities. We are categorical that the policy would rob the university of the opportunity of short, medium and long-term planning in effort to deliver on the objective.”
Nasir said TSA has led to a scenario where Federal Government, through the Ministry of Finance, releases less of what is required for the payment of teachers and workers as well as for infrastructural development and other needs.
According to the union leader, one of the fundamental challenges was the frustration being experienced in funding research.
He added that local funds were trapped and those from international donor agencies were also made unavailable by bottleneck created by TSA.
For instance, he said at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, fund administered by the institution through an international donor for certain programmes for five African countries, “is also trapped owing to TSA”.
The ASUU Zonal Coordinator added: “There are similar developments at the University of Lagos. At this rate, Nigerian universities and researchers may be blacklisted. This development would also frustrate access to international grants.
ASUU considers this as a direct attack on the running of universities.”
Nasir noted that the development was distracting universities from renewed effort to place them in the tier of global visibility.
The union leader urged the public to prevail on the Federal Government to rescind the decision on universities joining the TSA.
Chairman of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) Dr. Deji Agbooade said since last May, the state government paid them half salary, adding that his colleagues have been collecting salaries till dated through other sources from the university.
Other branch chairmen lamented that most governments at the state levels were showing signs of unwillingness to improve funding to their universities.