Ekpoma (Edo) – Prof. Ignatius Onimawo, the Vice Chancellor, Ambrose Ali University(AAU), Ekpoma, says the institution will boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) mechanism to ensure regular payment of salaries.
Onimawo said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) on Wednesday in Ekpoma.
He said management would shore up the institution’s IGR to augment the short fall from the state government subvention rather than pay half salaries to workers.
Onimawo added that his administration would not allow the current financial difficulty to affect the high academic standard the institution was known for through avoidable industrial action.
“We have decided to ensure that management engages and interacts with both staff and students on their welfare,’’ he said.
According to him, the area likely to bring about confrontation is non payment of salaries.
“ We are therefore determined not to allow the monthly shortfall in subvention affect the smooth operation of the system.
“Our monthly subvention is about N440 million and we get about 250 million from government while the balance is from our IGR,’’ he said.
Onimawo said the vision of his administration was to position the university to be the best state university and one of the best 10 universities in Nigeria.
“ We came in with a lot of zeal to move fast on IGR.
“ Our fish pond is functional and before the end of March, the university’s bakery will become fully functional while our bottled water factory has been re-energised to produce more.
“ Our integrated farm project is doing well and right now, we want to partner the state government on rice production and other arable crops.
“We have a dam on the campus that can make all year farming possible. So, these are all sources of income for the university.
“All am saying is that IGR from AAU is a component of school fees, other fees and other sources of revenue. These are helping us to keep afloat from wherever we were before now.
“We are not doing very well, but we are not complaining.
“ The thing is that we have been able to pay full salaries up to date. Even very many federal universities that manage to pay full salaries are not able to pay excess workloads.
“We are paying it along with our salaries. So, I must say we have done really quite well on this aspect,’’ he said.
