‘TSA Stalling Varsities Research’

The Treasury Single Account (TSA), introduced by the Federal Government to check corruption in the system, is stalling research in the universities, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), said yesterday.

Our source reports that exempting the universities from the TSA is among the demands of ASUU, whose members embarked on a one-week warning strike last Wednesday.

According to its National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, other demands include the payment of Earned Academic Allowances, effective funding of the universities, an end to the payment of fractions of salaries to some institutions, among others.

Ogunyemi has already warned that ASUU would embark on an indefinite strike after the warning strike, if their demands were not met.

“The TSA is a good policy, but its bottlenecks are too much,” he told our source yesterday in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

“International and corporate bodies send research grants to universities, which are paid into the accounts of the institutions, but they get trapped in centralised TSA accounts that are not accessible.

“Such grants come with timelines and the granting institutions get agitated and start asking questions which we can neither answer nor explain. Often, this leads to forfeiture,” he said.