The Minority Leader of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Hon Oyebamiji Lagunju has urged the Assembly to mandate the state governor, Abiola Ajimobi to seek assistance from Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who is the Chancellor of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), following the lingering crisis.
The lawmaker representing Oriire state constituency, made the call on Tuesday, during the plenary, following the committee report presented to the Assembly over the crisis rocking the citadel of learning in the past few years.
He opined that the only solution to the crisis was for Tinubu to wade in, as the chancellor of the institution, with a view of finding a lasting solution to the issue of indebtedness of the two owner states, Oyo and Osun.
As stated by him, if Asiwaju Tinubu’s input had been sorted by governors of the two states, the crisis would have been heading towards resolution point, adding that the Osun State Government had not been showing much concern about the lingering crisis in the institution.
A member of the Assembly, Hon. Olawumi Oladeji, had last year called for the constitution of a committee, with a view of proffering solutions to the crisis in terms of short and long term.
Part of what formed the call by Hon. Oladeji for setting up of the committee, was the need by the two owner states to specifically address the non-payment of salaries of LAUTECH staff, which she said, had led to many months of industrial strike.
However, in the report of Committee on Education, Science and Technology on the need to avert another industrial strike action by unions in the institution, presented during the plenary by Hon. Afeez Adeleke, representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju, he recommended to the Assembly for approval that the two governors of the states of Oyo and Osun be urged to release the outstanding subventions due to the institution to pay salary arrears to workers of LAUTECH in order to prevent a looming strike, being proposed by the staff unions of the institution.
Similarly, the report recommended that the two state governments be urged to mandate KPMG firm, assigned to audit the account of the institution to expedite action and submit its report within three weeks assigned to it, while it appealed to the various unions in LAUTECH to suspend all plans towards embarking on another strike action.
The report also called on the two state governments to expedite action towards the release of report of the technical committee set up to look into the report of the visitation panel to LAUTECH early this year.
While deliberating on the committee report, majority of Assembly members who contributed opined that the government of Osun had been showing less concern to plight of the LAUTECH staff by not fulfilling its own commitment to the joint ownership status of the institution.
In his remark, Speaker of the House, Hon. Michael Adeyemo, appealed to other lawmakers of the Assembly to give the two state governments’ benefit of the doubt, hoping that they would respond appropriately to the committee report presented to the Assembly on its findings at the institution and the panacea to the crisis.
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