The federal government has
finally bowed to the opposition from the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) over the use of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System
(IPPIS) in paying salaries to its members.
ASUU had been at loggerheads with
the federal government over the use of IPPIS. The union had presented its
University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as an alternative.
The federal government had,
however, insisted on the use of IPPIS. This, among other issues, had led to the
union’s ongoing strike, which is already over eight months.
But in a communiqué issued after
its meeting with ASUU on Friday, Chris Ngige, minister of labour and
employment, said the government has shifted ground on the compulsory use of
IPPIS for paying members of the union.
Ngige also said the federal
government has agreed to the union’s demand that its members’ salary arrears
from February to June be paid through the Government Integrated Financial and
Management Information System (GIFMIS), which is the old payment platform.
The minister said the old payment
platform would be used until the dust surrounding the use of IPPIS is resolved.
Ngige added that he is currently
working with Adamu Adamu, minister of education, to lift the ‘no work, no pay’
directive earlier introduced by the federal government.
“We are also reviewing how the lecturers will
be paid on the old platform until UTAS is ready for usage,” he said.
“We agreed also that the withheld
salaries are the component of the issue of ‘no work, no pay’ that was invoked
and the minister of education and myself are working on that to get approval
for the lifting of the embargo.
“This is a transition period
between the formalisation of UTAS, and as soon as we finish this, the Office of the Accountant General of the
Federation, the National Universities Commission and the vice chancellors are to work together
to make sure that the withheld salaries are paid through the old platform,
which the Accountant General’s office used in paying the salaries of university
workers that were not captured on IPPIS for the months of February , March,
April, May and June.”
The minister reiterated federal
government’s commitment to also address other demands by the union, while also
expressing optimism ahead of the next meeting billed for Friday to discuss when
to end the ongoing strike.
Reacting, Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU
president, promised to present the federal government’s new offers to members
of the union before taking further steps.
“Government has given us some new
offers and we have promised government that we will present it faithfully to
our members through our organs and report back to government with the position
of members on what the government has offered,” he said.
“There is a slight modification
to what we got but we acknowledged that some progress has been made in some
areas. We will give the government our response by next week after discussing
with our members.”
The development comes at about
the same time when the government offered ASUU N65 billion to address the
union’s lingering strike.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com