A presidential aide on Niger Delta Affairs, Ita Enang, has said that the Federal Government cannot meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Enang, a member of the FG-ASUU negotiating team, said this on Arise Television on Wednesday.
The Nigeria Labour Congress had on Tuesday begun a protest in solidarity with ASUU over its strike that has lingered for over five months.
Reacting, Enang said, “What has caused the strike is the inability of the government to have enough revenue to meet the demands of the workers, given the competing revenues and the down in the income of the government and other competing challenges in raising revenue.
“Because the willingness to pay, the agreement to pay, should be backed by the ability to pay.
“And I say this in view of the fact that some days ago, we had some officers of the government coming to say our revenue or our debt servicing, not just debt repayment and other of our challenges, are exceeding the income that we have.
“Even if the government today sign the demands of ASUU today, where is the ability to pay?”
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had pointed out that the N1.3trn Revitalisation Fund was a promise by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan when Nigeria’s finances were stable.
“The N1.3trn you are talking about was promised by the (Goodluck) Jonathan government. Oil was selling between $100 to $120 per barrel then and the revenue of the federation was rich. They paid N200bn which they borrowed from TETFund. They did not take it from the federation account.
“A committee was set up with ASUU as members. The government said ‘we are going to drop N25bn for you to show you in good faith that we are not talking nonsense’. We don’t have it. The government didn’t say we are going to pay N1.1trn that is remaining,” Ngige had said.
