MR. ORIAKU REITERATES GOVERNMENT’S COMMITMENT TO ABIA POLY REFORM

 
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It was incisive during an interactive session with the Abia finance commissioner on magic FM Aba, as he bared his mind on the state of education in the Abia State and measures employed by the government to resolve the impasse between the lecturers and the striking secondary school teachers.
He admitted that the present administration meet the school in deep rot, hence the efforts to bring sanity to the system. He gave instances with the school had 44 accounts before now but at present, it has been collapsed into one with online payment adopted. This was made possible by the management changes and far reaching reforms of this administration.
He noted that the the institution has over bloated workforce occasioned by improper employment based on clannish consideration, a situation that has made the wage bill unsustainable. Admittedly, he said that presently efforts are being made to beam searchlight in illegal employment as such, those with forged certificates would be shown the exit door.
He frowned at the some fundamental rots met which blew the wage bill of the institution out of proportion which includes falsification of age by staff to remain at work, Abia Poly lecturers whose degree peaks at Ph.D earns higher than professors in Nigerian Universities, employment gained through the back door with forged certificates, having 15 lecturers for a class (statistics) with less than 10 students, having chief medical officer and 15 more senior medical personnel in a school that has no clinic, having over 40 employees to man the school canteen which should rather be a private business, having about 1,400 staff with over 1,000 serving as none academic staff.
He bemoaned that the students population has drastically dropped from 22,000 to 12,000, hence the sum total of the internally generally revenue acruable through school fees is only able to take care of three months salaries of one hundred and eighty million even though they run overheads cost from there which made the wage bill regime not sustainable.
Mr. Oriaku said cases of falsified ages abound which has made the State Government subvention and the school internal generated funds cannot offset salaries. He expressed confidence on the management of the institution headed by prof. Eboh and government’s commitment to speedily resolve the issues.
On secondary school teachers, he said government is sincere and working hard to bring their salary payment at par with other MDAs as such, they should heed to government pleas to call off the industrial action. He noted that for the first time in the history of the State Abia has paid off the N90m Teachers Salary Enhancement Scheme (TSES) to the Government primary school teachers and urged them to remain law abiding.
The Commisioner maintained that Abia is the only State within the South East that pays 100% of workers emoluments and noted that some of these accounted for the very high wage bill of State as against some States whose entire wage bill is equivalent to the total amount paid to primary and secondary school teachers alone in Abia State.
He called on all striking workers to have understanding with the government and reiterated government’s commitments to bringing lasting solution to the lingering crisis.