The Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) has proposed an alternative to the federal government’s
Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
ASUU has been at loggerheads with
the FG since President Mohammadu Buhari ordered all workers to enroll in the
centralized payroll system to clamp down on corruption and ensure transparency.
While ordering its members to
shun the compulsory enrollment, ASUU had mobilized for strike over FG’s refusal
to negotiate and vowed that it’ll sanction lecturers who acted contrary to its
stance on the matter.
In a new development, the union
proposed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as an
alternative to IPPIS — weeks after FG’s enrollment deadline had reached — to
resolve the protracted dispute.
According to This Day, Biodun
Ogunyemi, ASUU president, said the union spent almost N2 million to develop
UTAS and confirmed that most of its members received their December salaries
contrary to FG threats.
Ogunyemi said ASUU is expected to
meet with Adamu Adamu, the minister of education, in early 2020, following his
promise to summon a meeting as soon as he returned from his foreign trip.
Hinting that ASUU’s strike threat
may no longer arise, he said the union would continue to push for FG’s
consideration of the alternative software it has developed for the payment of
university workers’ salaries.
“The process we have started with
our University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) will continue.
We hope that FG will listen to us and allow us to present it because we feel
that is the way to go,”Ogunyemi said.
“It’s not as if we like going on
strike but it’s only when our members are pushed to the wall that they react.
We don’t start an action without a reason. Since the status quo remains, we
hope the process of engagement will continue.”
Likening UTAS to commercial
banks, Ogunyemi said the alternative is less cumbersome to implement and does not
require officials from the accountant general’s office to visit individual
universities in a bid to get workers enrolled.
ASUU had rejected IPPIS on
account of what it described as “grey areas” and warned that Nigeria’s
university system could be thrown into chaos if the FG insisted on compulsorily
enrolling of its members.
However, Ahmed Idris, the
accountant-general of the federation (AGF), had fired back, describing the
union’s opposition to the new system as an “open endorsement of corruption.”
The federal ministry of education
had also claimed that ASSU is jittery over IPPIS because the new system would expose the
financial atrocities and irregularities committed by their members on FG’s
payroll.
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