The ministry of education says
the implementation of the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System
(IPPIS) will expose financial atrocities and irregularities among universities
on the federal government’s payroll.
TheCable earlier reported that
the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) “mobilized for a nationwide
strike” over the federal government’s refusal to negotiate its enrolment on the
compulsory payment scheme.
According to ThisDay, Ben Bem
Goong, a spokesperson of the ministry of education, said ASUU’s opposition to
the scheme is due to the financial irregularities and corruption being
perpetrated in the system which IPPIS would expose.
While accusing government-owned
institutions of manipulating their costs, Ben added that there’s no basis for
anyone to resist payment through IPPIS if such a stance is not targeted at
“hiding something.”
“There’s no basis for anyone to
resist payment through IPPIS. Even on the issue of double appointments in
different institutions, which will be discovered by the scheme, the ministry of
finance promised to take care of all that. Going on strike is unnecessary,” he
said.
“If tomorrow technology evolves
in such a way that we will have to move from IPPIS to a more refined system of
payment, the government will do that. But ASUU is saying the nation has reached
the final bus stop and so the system of payment should not be refined.
“FG says ‘let’s pay everyone from
the centre,’ and ASUU is jittery. That means there is something that is fishy.
What is it they are doing that they don’t want to be on IPPIS, which will solve
many things? ASUU has no issue at all. You don’t tell your paymaster how to be
paid, but you can negotiate with your paymaster how much he will pay you.
“They claim it will disparage
their autonomy, but they have never been specific to which part of the
autonomy. If you know, tell me. There is something some persons are trying to
hide. When you send the bulk cost to some institutions, they manipulate it, and
people are not talking about that. It is what ASUU is trying to hide.
“ASUU wants to draw the nation
back to the 1960s when salaries were paid by hand and pay envelopes. Wait and
see, at the end of this enrollment, the government will expose some level of
atrocities being committed in some of these institutions. ASUU should accept it
in good fate and they should also be happy.”
ASUU had accused the government
of designing IPPIS to suppress the masses in the guise of anti-corruption and
threatened “no pay no work” — a move which was later suspended over further
meetings with the government.
Ahmed Idris, the
accountant-general of the federation (AGF), had described the union’s
opposition as an “open endorsement of corruption,” stating that the FG remains
unwavering on the deadline for all MDAs to enroll on the platform.
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