FG, ASUU reconciliation meeting
Following the controversies over the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) of peddling lies.
The president of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke, noted this in a statement released after the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on Sunday.
He warned the DG, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, to desist from making comments that could jeopardise the joint ongoing testing of UTAS between the NITDA Technical Team and the union.
The union also threatened that it would demand that the initial NITDA Technical Report on UTAS, where it scored 85 per cent in User Acceptance Test (UAT) be made public if it (NITDA) continues to insist that UTAS failed the integrity tests.
Being one of the contending issues that necessitated the ongoing ASUU strike, UTAS has sparked more conflict between the union and the Nigerian government over a recent disclosure that it failed ‘integrity tests’.
The NITDA boss had said UTAS failed three integrity tests – user acceptance test, vulnerability test, and stress test, which were conducted by his agency.
He said: “We did all these three tests with them and the system couldn’t pass. We wrote the reports and submitted them back to the honourable minister, which he forwarded to all relevant institutions, including ASUU. As we speak now, ASUU is working, trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system and we will review it again. But that is just one half of the story.”
But ASUU has insisted that UTAS scored both 85 and 77 per cent, which are “high class grades in any known evaluation system”.
Mr Osodeke, explaining further in the statement, stated that NITDA carried out the first integrity test on August 10, 2021, in NUC where relevant government agencies and all the end-users in the University system were present. He said all accepted UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in Nigerian universities.
“However, in a curious twist of submission, the NITDA Technical Team, after conducting a comprehensive functionality test came out to say that out of 687 test cases, 529 cases were satisfactory, 156 cases queried, and 2 cases were cautioned.
“Taking this report on its face value, the percentage score is 77%. The question that arises from this is, can 77% in any known fair evaluation system be categorised as failure?”
Speaking further, he said that NITDA “in their desperation to justify their false assertions, threw up issues such as Data centre and hosting of UTAS software which are clearly outside the rubrics of ASUU’s responsibilities in the deployment of UTAS.”
ASUU’s several meetings, the major outcome was at the last meeting where ASUU agreed to present the government’s proposal to its members.
After several meetings, the major outcome was at the last meeting where ASUU agreed to present the government’s proposal to its members.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the two most important demands that could end the strike were the renegotiation of the 2009 federal government-ASUU agreement on the working conditions of Nigerian academics and the deployment of UTAS to replace the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) imposed on universities by the government.
Other demands include the payment of earned academic allowances; revitalisation fund for universities; distortions in the payment of salaries; funding of state universities, and the release of white papers on the visitation panels sent to the universities.
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