There is palpable tension among staff of Oyo State-owned tertiary institutions, as they are yet to receive their March salary as at Thursday, 7 April, 2022, nearly two weeks after other category of staff in the state civil and public service got paid.
OYOINSIGHT.COM’s investigations revealed that while workers in Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, OYSCATECH, Igboora, Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, Oyo State College of Education, Lanlate and Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa, have not been paid at all, and will have to wait on the state government, those of The Polytechnic, Ibadan and Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki, who have been paid, sources swore, had to be from their institutions’ pockets, a development which had been recurring since the Oyo State government began cutting its subvention to these institutions.
Worried by this delay, and probably to reduce the brewing tension among staff, authorities of OYSCATECH even had to issue a release pacifying staff, and explaining reasons for the delay.
Should the situation continue till next week, there are insinuations that the brewing tension may eventually snowball into a full-scale crisis.
The Joint Action Committee, JAC, of the six, an amalgam of staff unions in state-owned tertiary institutions, have fixed an emergency meeting for Friday, 8 April, 2022 to discuss the matter.
The unfortunate thing about this development OYOINSIGHT.COM learnt, is that the state government does not seem to have a cogent explanation.
Recall OYOINSIGHT.COM had exclusively reported last week how, for the fourth month running, this section of its workforce have had to endure late payment of salaries, as well as a drop in the percentage paid them beginning from February, 2022.
“Government appears unbothered by our predicament,” some of the workers in these institutions whose opinions were sampled, lamented.
These indeed, are not the best of times for Oyo State-owned tertiary institution workers, only a stitch in time by government can save the day.
