By Tina George, Minna
For more than two weeks, tertiary institutions in Niger state have been on strike partly due to the demand by the Institutions that the state government improve on the decaying infrastructures in the Institutions.
It has been gathered that over 71 per cent proposed projects in Niger state owned tertiary institutions have remained uncompleted due to non release of funds.
While these projects have been submitted and awarded, most of them have not been funded to enable the contractors carry out the contracts.
According to documents made available to newsmen during a briefing on Tuesday by the Commissioner of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Alhaji Muhammed Baba Adamu, only six out of 21 of the projects have been started but have not been completed as the full amount of the project sum has not been released.
According to the projects, it was said to have remained uncompleted largely due to lack of funds to finance the projects.
Among the projects which has been awarded but have not started include the construction of block of five classrooms at the Justice Fati Lami Abubakar Institute of Legal Studies awarded to Yankas Construct Nigeria. Limited at N38 million in 2018, procurement of textbooks to the library awarded to U.12 International concept at N9.13 million in 2016.
For the accreditation of Community health programmes and courses at the School of Health Technology, Minna, N3.33 million was awarded but not released while for the accreditation of same programmes in the School of Health Technology,Tungan Magajiya, N6 million was awarded but not released.
The projects which have been started but not completed include the procurement of journal shelves and ICT equipment for the Justice Fati Lami Abubakar Institute of Legal Studies valued at N14 million out of which N3.5 million was released.
The construction of Demonstration Clinic at the School of Health Technology, Tungan Magajiya which is at 82 per cent completion had N12.6 million out of N14.9 million released while N5.6 million out of N123.5 million was released for scholarship of students studying within Nigeria and overseas.
Briefing newsmen on the activities of his Ministry, the Commissioner of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology said the contribution of intervention agencies and development partners have gone a long way in improving the state of infrastructures in the state owned tertiary institutions.
He stated that the non commencement of most of the projects is due to the lean financial position of the state which had further led to the non execution of capital projects in 2018.
Speaking on the strike embarked upon by the tertiary institutions in the state, Adamu said that the strike is not due to decayed infrastructure but the inability of government to meet its agreement for the payment of some allowances to the staff out of which the government only had 23 per cent outstanding.
He however noted that the strike will soon be called off as the state Head of Service and the Ministry have been in series of meetings with the leadership of the unions in the Institutions and they are making headway.
“The strike should be called off before the end of this week. We are working to meet their demands and we are making progress.”
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