Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the Minister of finance, yesterday during the meeting of commissioners of finance and accontants general of states said the Federal Government can not meet the extra N92 billion naira demanded by ASUU even after the long period that the strike has lasted. Read her words after the cut:
“At present, ASUU wants the Federal Government to pay N92 billion in extra allowances, when the resources are not there, and when we are working to integrate past increases in pensions. We need to make choices in this country as we are getting to the stage where recurrent expenditures take the bulk of our resources and people get paid but can do no work. Since I assumed office, the share of recurrent expenditure in our total budgets had increased astronomically. In fact, recurrent expenditure accounted for about 77.2 per cent of the federal budget and we are now working to re-balance this ratio.
The country is still suffering from the effect of the 2010 increase in salary. Do we want to get to a stage in this country that all the money we earn is used to pay salaries and allowances? If the demands of the university lecturers are met and we continue to pay them salaries and allowances, we will not be able to provide infrastructure in the universities.”
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