Gombe State governor, Inuwa Yahaya, has lamented that the striking staff members of the Gombe State University (GSU) do not properly pay their ‘Pay As You Earn’ (PAYE) taxes to the state government like other civil servants.
The governor made the lamentation last Monday while inaugurating a high powered committee to resolve the series of strikes embarked upon by the entire staff of the university.
Our correspondent reports that different categories of university workers, including lecturers, non-academic staff, senior staff, and others, declared strikes consecutively, disrupting learning and paralysing all university activities.
The staff took industrial actions under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).
The unions explained that the industrial actions were due, among other things, to the non-implementation of the old N30,000 minimum wage for their members, the non-payment of accumulated earned allowances, and the underfunding of the university.
However, Governor Inuwa decried that the staff of the university do not discharge their obligations by paying their PAYE tax even as the state government made it lower than that of federal government, noting that they still refuse to remit the tax properly.
“We have records that even the ‘pay as you earn’ that Gombe State University was supposed to remit to the government has not been remitting fully. And in 2019 at the point of negotiation sometime, they refused to, even when we were applying the rates charged by the federal government to ASUU and the academic unions, they refused.
“And we had to come down to adjust to a lower figure of tax, but yet they don’t remit that to government. So, I don’t know why. Government only gets from the federation account and raises money through the pay as you earn and other IGR sources in order to fund its operations. But now, they refuse to give, and they still want more.”, he complained.
While clarifying further, the governor said the government cannot deduct the taxes from the source because it pays the university its money as subvention through their management.
He also said that the state government pays the sum of N200 million every month to the university, adding that the management came to him once to inform him of the intention to increase their charges and tuition fees, which he rejected.
Inuwa explained that members of the reconciliation committee include the deputy governor, secretary to the state government, commissioner for local governments, commissioner for finance, state attorney general and commissioner for justice, commissioner higher education, commissioner for education, commissioner budget and planning, chairman Gombe State Internal Revenue Service, permanent secretary Bureau of Public Service Reform, state auditor general, state accountant general and chairman Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON).
Responding, the chairman of the committee and state deputy governor, Manasseh Jatau, assured the public of their commitment to not only resolve immediate issues but also to establish a framework for long-term stability at the university.
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