ASUP Rejects Sinister Moves By FG To Reintroduce Wirhdrawn IGR Deductions
President Bola Tinubu had withdrawn an earlier directive to introduce a 40% deduction from IGR of tertiary institutions, after a stiff resistance from all the unions in Nigeria's tertiary institutions.
Find the FULL ASUP Press statement below.
ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF POLYTECHNIC (ASUP)
3rd January, 2024
PRESS STATEMENT ON THE FINANCE CIRCULAR OF 28th DECEMBER, 2023 ISSUED BY THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE
Our Union’s attention has been drawn to the finance circular issued by the Federal Ministry of Finance on the 28th of December, 2023 conveying implementation of “Presidential Directives on 50% Automatic Deduction from Internally Generated Revenue of Federal Government Owned Enterprises”.
This circular is similar t
o the one issued in October 2023 where the Federal Government conveyed its plans to commence the deduction of 40% of the “Internally Generated Revenue of partially funded federal government institutions”.
Both circulars included heads of tertiary institutions established and owned by the Federal Government in the distribution implying that the Federal Tertiary Institutions are included in the Federal Government’s classification of revenue generating agencies/agents of the government. We are equally aware that following the outcry from the nation, the President directed a suspension of the policy in Federal Tertiary Institutions.
We are therefore surprised and worried that the Federal Ministry of Finance is issuing yet another circular to this effect presumably overriding the Presidential directive on the issue as there no reports yet indicating that the President has lifted the suspension.
At the heart of our Union’s worry is the continued classification of these tertiary institutions as “Revenue Generating Agencies/Agents of the Federal Government”. We view this an embarrassingly poor understanding of the workings and indeed the well
documented deplorable funding status of these tertiary institutions by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
For the records and the umpteenth time, tuition fees are forbidden in the nation’s tertiary institutions as a policy of the government. These institutions survive on the meager allocations for capital, overhead and personnel costs from the government with support from interventionist agencies like Tertiary Education Trust Fund. The fees charged by these institutions which is currently and erroneously tagged as IGR are charges for specific services to students.
We are indeed worried by this unwelcome end of the year “gift” by the Federal Ministry of Finance as same is a clear invitation to anarchy in these tertiary institutions. As a matter of fact, no Polytechnic in the country can survive with this poorly thought out policy of classifying tertiary institutions as revenue generating agencies.
We are therefore calling for the exclusion of tertiary institutions in general and Polytechnics in particular from this circular. This call is borne from the need to save the institutions and Polytechnics in particular from foreseen capitulation with its severe ripple effect and consequences on staff, students and society at large.
The Federal Government should rather devise means of increasing funding to these tertiary institutions as they should be treated as part of the social service sectors in dire need of resuscitation and stability.
Shammah S. Kpanja
(President)
