Abia State Poly loses accreditation over 30 months unpaid Staff Salaries

The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has withdrawn their accreditation from Abia State Polytechnic, Aba due to inability to pay staff salaries and allowances for over 30 months.

The spokesperson for NBTE, Fatima Abubakar hinted that the accreditation was withdrawn because of the unseriousness to pay the arrears and ensure prompt payment of salaries. She said “It is, therefore, with the utmost sense of responsibility that the board has decided to withdraw the accreditation status of the polytechnic to safeguard the quality assurance mechanism of the board,” It was also said that the governing council and management of the polytechnic had made several promises to settle the backlog of salary arrears but has not shown any committment adding that the regular payment of salaries was important for quality assurance in the polytechnics, technical, vocational education, and training (TVET) institutions and had drawn the attention of the management of the polytechnics of the dire consequences of failure to comply with payment of salaries adding that they wrote a letter to the Abia state Governor Dr Okezie Ikpeazu yet there was no serious response.Meanwhile, the NBTE has notified the National Youth Service Corps ( NYSC ) that no student of the Abia State Polytechnic should be sent for national service until the management of the polytechnic settles the pending salaries of staff members and promised to notify NYSC once the issues has been resolved.nonpayment of salary to its staffers, while the Board promised to notify the NYSC once the accreditation status of the polytechnic is restored.”

The NBTE official said the board sent a similar notice of the withdrawal of the accreditation to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Industrial Training Fund to stop any official transaction with the polytechnic. When contacted by ABN TV for a comment on the development, the Rector of Abia State Polytechnic, Professor Kalu Osonwa could not be reached.

Several calls on his phone line were not answered, and text messages were not responded to.