Press Statement
The Socialist Party of
Nigeria, SPN, Oyo State Chapter warns the four existing workers’ unions
(Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Non-academic Staff Union, NASU,
Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities, SSANU and National
Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT) in Ladoke Akintola University of
Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomosho to be vigilant and watchful over the proposed
forensic audit of LAUTECH by the Senator Ajimobi-led government of Oyo State.
According to Prof. Niyi Olowofela, the state Commissioner of Education, the
proposed forensic audit is one of the ways the government hopes to solve the
funding issues of LAUTECH permanently.
It is a welcome
development if truly the Ajimobi-led government has finally realised the need,
after many months of insensitivity to the plight of LAUTECH workers and
students, to permanently end the lingering crisis in LAUTECH. However, the SPN is
suspicious of sincerity of the Oyo government, given how, through its
commissioner of education; it has been so desperate and vociferous on the so
called proposed forensic audit. This is especially when there is no empirical
explanation as to how such an audit is intended to resolve the crisis of poor
funding bedeviling LAUTECH.
Therefore, a proposal
of forensic audit in LAUTECH at this critical period when agitation among
workers for the payment of their over 8 month salary arrears has paralysed the
entire activities in the university requires a serious vigilance. This is very
important because the past forensic audit specifically since the inception of
Senator Ajimobi-led government in the state has often led to arbitrary
dismissal and retrenchment of civil servants in the state.
It must be recalled
that it is the same KPMG, a private consultant firm, commissioned by the Oyo
state government to carry out the proposed LAUTECH forensic audit that has
always been in charge of various forensic audit civil servants in the state had
undertaken at different occasions. Also worthy to note is the fact that the
so-called forensic audit is often based on the pretence to purge the state
civil service of ghost workers. Very similar to such an impression is the claim
that the proposed LAUTECH forensic audit is meant to sanctify the University of
a Tradition of corruption. Take for instance, is the allegation that the
university administration operates over 79 different bank accounts.
Also worthy to note, is the fact that
Ajimobi-led government is known with the style of imposing forensic audit each
time workers agitate for their legitimate entitlement. This is exactly what
happened following the seven week strike embarked upon by Oyo State workers
between June and July 2016 to demand the payment of their backlog of unpaid
salaries. A forensic audit was imposed on the Oyo State civil servants under
the pretence of the need to purge the system of ghost workers. But the exercise
turned out to be a ploy through which hundreds of civil servants including
medical doctors in the state were arbitrary dismissed on the basis of an
allegation that their respective WAEC certificates are fake.
Following this
development were letters sent from the WAEC office directly to the office of
the Oyo State Head of Service that initial claim by the consultant firm that
some WAEC certificates were fake was not true. In fact, it took this kind of
official response from WAEC following efforts of the affected workers and a
committee later set up by the State Chapter of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, to
discover that the investigation allegedly carried out by the KPMG prior to its
recommendation, did not go beyond the fact that it allegedly hacked into the
database of WAEC such that any worker whose name was not found therein was
assumed to have fake WAEC certificate. This implies that all civil servants who
sat for WAEC before the advent of computerisation of result by WAEC were
assumed to hold fake certificate.
Unfortunately, despite
all of these revelations, the Oyo State government has upheld the dismissal of
the affected civil servants, including those that were exonerated on the basis
of letter from WAEC, on the basis of the so called recommendation of the KPMG.
Worse still, this was done without any effort to provide the affected workers
with avenue for fair hearing through which they can adequately defend
themselves. The most disheartening is that other category of workers who are
free of the KPMG indictment are continue to groan under backlog of salaries
arrears ranging between 3 and 6months.
It is in line with this
background, that SPN urges the LAUTECH workers through their unions to learn
from the past precedent and unanimously demand an explanation over how exactly
the so-called forensic audit would solve the problem of funding as claimed by
the commissioner. Most importantly is the need for the unions to deepen the
resistance against the dubious plan by the state government to drag the unions
into the encumbrances surrounding financial auditing by KPMG, especially when
the locus of financial policy and repository of the financial documents of the
LAUTECH are the university council and administration and not the workers in
the university.
Bamigboye
Abiodun(Abbey Trotsky)
State
Secretary, SPN
08033914091
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