Ekiti lecturers protest Fayose’s tax directive

Lecturers of College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti, on Wednesday protested against the Ekiti state governor’s directive to deduct taxes directly from the monthly subvention to the school which invariably affect their salaries.
The lecturers, protesting under the College of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), marched from the new science building where they earlier held an emergency meeting and then moved to the provost’s office. The COEASU chairman in the college led the protest and addressed the principal officers at the administration block where the march terminated. It was reported that the lecturers also demanded the immediate payment of their seven-month salary arrears, the non-payment of which has inflicted untold hardship on them and their families.
COEASU in a seven-point communiqué signed by one official and the union’s secretary, Dare Owolabi, described the government’s act of deducting taxes directly from the monthly subvention to the school without the knowledge of the taxpayers as “highly barbaric.”
“The union hereby demands the release of the amount deducted from May 2017 subvention by the state government with immediate effect. The union also frowns at the policy of divide-and-rule employed by the state government on the payment of salaries to workers in the state where some categories of workers have been paid two months salaries ahead of the subvention,” he said.