CRUTECH: Crippling Strike Imminent

Unless something drastic is done, a crippling strike by staff of the Cross River state-owned university, CRUTECH will commence soon, www.calitown.com sources in the university say. The impending strike action is not unconnected with the CRS government’s inability to pay salaries and allowances of all categories of staff in the institution.

“After the last ASUU nationwide strike, it took a while for staff salaries to come as at when due. We had an unfortunate scenario where salaries were paid once in two or three months, …and the wages are heavily over taxed by the same government that cannot pay salaries”, one source told www.calitown.com.

As the situation persisted and a new Vice-Chancellor was appointed, staff of the university who had loins girded ready for an industrial action, put those plans on hold when the new V-C “actually begged for time”. It appears the window of grace given to the new V-C has thrown up nothing substantially for staff of the institution. Especially, “the unions are aggrieved as the yuletide season is by the corner and the need to carter for families school fees and other challenges beckon. It is also a shame that, government has not even thought it wise in any way that staff allowances over the years as agreed from the last strike, be paid every staff. Families in the university are begging to survive. Should staff of the institution really go on strike, it will be for long and who knows what will happen as most students are near graduation”, our source submitted.

The source continues; “nothing is working in CRUTECH, not even a single project has been executed in the past seven years of this administration, only ETF (Educational Trust Fund) has shown some presence in the institution”. Students in the institution are charged heavily but still struggle for classroom space during lectures”. One lecturer in the institution recently expressed his frustrations about the situation in CRUTECH with a social media post which questioned the rationale behind government’s establishment of the Institute of Technology and Management, Ugep, when it has been unable to properly administer CRUTECH. He opined that the millions of dollars spent on the ITM would have made better sense if CRUTECH’s infrastructure and staff welfare was targeted.