There were indications on Sunday that the Federal Government might
adopt any payment platform developed in universities as an alternative to the
Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
The spokesman for the Ministry of
Labour and Employment, Charles Akpan, who gave this indication in an interview
with The PUNCH, however, gave conditions for adopting any payment platform
apart from the IPPIS.
According to him, the platform
must be capable of eliminating ghost workers’ syndrome and other forms of
corruption in payment of salaries.
Akpan stated this as opposition to the IPPIS grew on Sunday when unions including the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities, the Non-Academic Staff Union and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria said it was only suitable for the civil service.
Recall that ASUU had on March 23,
begun an indefinite strike over the government’s insistence on the IPPIS, among
other reasons.
Other university unions, which
initially supported the payment system,
backed out on the grounds that it contained many irregularities.
As an alternative to the IPPIS,
ASUU had presented its University Transparency and Accountability Solution to
the Federal Government. UTAS is
currently being tested by the National Information Technology Development Agency,
while SSANU and NASU have proposed the University General and Peculiar
Personnel and Payroll System.
The President of ASUU, Prof.
Biodun Ogunyemi, restated the union’s opposition to the IPPIS, saying the
system would localise the university system if adopted.
He stated, “With the IPPIS, lecturers cannot move freely
across campuses; across countries. It is a system that will not allow you to employ
people from outside the country, people who are not on pensionable appointments
because the IPPIS focuses only on people with pensionable appointments.
Contract staff who are needed in scarce areas are shut out. Our colleagues in
the Diaspora who could come and give
international flavour and enrich our programmes are shut out. If you have a system that will not allow you
to fit into global practices, that system cannot fit into a university.”
He explained further that the
IPPIS would erode the autonomy of the university system which was established
by an Act in 2003.
Ogunyemi added, “The IPPIS was
designed for the civil service, which has a uniform approach to payroll. In the
civil service, they have to take permission from the head of civil service
before they can employ. That is not
possible in university education because a university operates a flexible payroll
system by the virtue that lecturers can come for short employment and
sabbaticals.”
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This is no grainer ASUU is smarter and more intelligent than this Government. ASUU represents the citadel of learning whereas the government does not have sound education not even a good secondary education. So what do you expect?
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