The meeting between Plateau State Government and the Joint Unions of Plateau State-owned Tertiary Institutions (JUPTI) on understaffing and other issues has been slated for today.
The two sides met last week over the challenges facing the institutions but could not reach a conclusion.
Daily Trust gathered that the last meeting between the parties, held on February 6, 2019 recorded little progress with so many pending issues yet to be addressed.
The Head of Service, Director Labour from the office of Head of Service and representative of the Accountant General of the state were at the meeting with JUPTI leadership and representatives from each of the state-owned tertiary institutions.
During the last meeting, issues like understaffing, non-release of subvention, 24 months pension arrears and non-payment of outstanding “No Work No Pay” monies for the month of May and June, 2011 were discussed.
Other issues discussed at the meeting included, peculiar allowance of 7% and 5% and re-constitution of College of Education, Gindiri Governing Council.
In a telephone interview, the Chairman of JUPTI, Paul Dakogol, said the previous meeting made little progress with a lot of issues to be addressed in today’s meeting.
He said, “We discussed a lot of issues including under-staffing, we showed them our concerns on the continuous delay in the payment of 24 months pension arrears. We also deliberated on peculiar allowance of 5% and 7% meant to cater for our academic research, journal publications, field trips, hazards and non-clinical allowances.
“We discussed a matter concerning our outstanding ‘No Work No Pay’ for the months of May and June 2011 and this payment has accrued to our retired and deceased members of staff. The situation is worrisome considering the agreement that was reached with government in September 2018,” he said.
He said on under-staffing, arrears of pensions and other issues, the office of the Head of Service promised to write a memo to Governor Simon Lalong.
A source in the office of the Head of Service said the meeting was fruitful.
