THE Vice Chancellor, Ebonyi State University, Prof. Chigozie Ogbu, has explained why the state varsity went bankrupt and has not been able to pay salaries for about three months.
The VC said the inability of the university to pay salaries was as a result of the negative effects of the COVID-19-induced lockdown on Internally Generated Revenue, mainly from students’ fees.
Ogbu gave the explanation in Abakaliki, while debunking speculations in the state that he had resigned from office.
The Vice Chancellor said, “We all woke up to the news like you heard, that the Vice-Chancellor has resigned but that is absolutely false. The Vice-Chancellor has not, has no intention to resign for any reason.
“Let me explain to you what has led to this; you recall that, either in February or March, all educational institutions were closed, the university inclusive, and you know the major source of income in the university are the students. At the time of the closure, students were just registering. A good number had registered, a good number had not registered also.
“So, because of the fee collected, we were able to continue to pay salaries until the end of May, and that time, we met with the staff, with the unions and everybody, and explained to them that because we were not collecting fees again, there was no other source of getting money to pay salaries. The state government subvents salaries. They’ve been paying their own subvention, but internally, because we don’t have money from students, the university cannot make up its portion of the salary.”
He said the university stopped the payment of salaries in June, adding that when the council became aware of the development, it set up a committee to see what could be done to raise funds for the university.
He said, “That committee worked with the union and other members of the academia and came up with the report, which, Thursday last week, was presented to the Visitor to the university, the Governor of the state, Engr. David Nweze Umahi.
“So, on Thursday, that presentation was done by the Chairman of the council. In that meeting, it was obvious that the Governor, who had been saying that all institutions must make a sacrifice in terms of reducing their wage bill, instructed that the university must go back and look at itself critically and see how they could sacrifice to reduce the salary.
“You are aware that many institutions have reduced the salary; we should look at our sister institution here in Ikwo. You know they have been receiving 85 per cent of their salary since last year. And so, they already thought that the university could make some sacrifice in terms of reducing their wage bill and then help in the area they can.”
The VC noted that in the past two days, the university had been working on activities to see what could be reduced in order to be able to satisfy the government and get assistance to continue to pay salary.
“So, there is nothing that necessitated anybody to think that the VC is resigning or is not happy because this is a hard time for everybody, for the university and for other organisations, and we all appreciate it and will do whatever we can to come out of it. There is no resignation of anybody here in the university, let alone the VC,” he said.
