IPPIS: ASUU Ready to Present Alternative Payment System to FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it is ready to make a presentation of its University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to the Federal Government.

The academic union president, Professor Abiodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this in a letter addressed to Zonal coordinators, chairpersons and members of the union made available to journalists in Ibadan by the Chairman ASUU, University of Ibadan, Prof Ayo Akinwole.

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Describing the controversial Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as “a business venture of some interest groups” in Nigeria, ASUU President maintained that “their profit margin increases by the increasing number of University staff they are able to capture,”   urging the union members not to waiver in their resolve to reject the IPPIS.

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The Federal Government and ASUU have been at loggerheads over the former’s introduction of the payment system in Nigerian public tertiary institutions. This has cumulated in a strike action by ASUU for over five months now. ASUU has insisted that it has a better alternative system that would achieve a better result.

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Ogunyemi stated that the deliberate withholding and distortion of salaries by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation were ploys to hoodwink and arm-twist members to swallow their vomit on IPPIS.

The union president assured members that once the issue of payment platform is sorted out; the union will then pursue to a logical conclusion the main demands behind the ongoing strike.

He said that as a collective, “the union will be able to negotiate and secure what is good for Nigerian academics and our university system. As expected, the vested interests are uncomfortable with the emergence of the university transparency system because of its potential for exposing the IPPIS fraud.

“The impression earlier created was that no further payment of salaries could be made without  data capture,” adding,  however, the IPPIS office had forcefully migrated all academic staff in federal universities to the platform and what is being done now is to formalise the process.

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He said, “The deliberate withholding and distortion of salary paid by the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) are ploys to hoodwink and arm-twist ASUU members to swallow their vomit on IPPIS.

“At this stage, it is unedifying to see ASUU members filing to the Bursar’s Office of OAGF for IPPIS data capture. Apart from betraying the Union, many of those who attempted to go solo have also been ridiculed beyond description. Even non-members respect the ASUU for its informed and principled position on IPPIS.”