Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has it that Federal Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education in Nigeria have been taken off from the controversial Integrated Personnel Payment System (IPPIS).
The Federal Executive Council during its meeting on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa Abuja gave the approval for the exemption.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman made this disclosure while briefing State House Correspondents alongside other ministers on the outcome of the FEC meeting, and said this takes immediate effect.
According to him, FEC also observed that Vice Chancellors of Universities didn’t need to abandon their work to come to Abuja to process the salaries of their personnel.
The Federal Government introduced the IPPIS in 2006 as one of its reform initiatives for the effective storage of personnel records, saying the move would improve transparency and accountability.
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The IPPIS initiative was also be expanded to include all ministries, departments and agencies that draw personnel costs from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would reject the reform and would have a continual tussle with the Federal Government over the continuous use of IPPIS for the payment of university lecturers’ entitlements.
ASUU’s Vice President, Chris Piwuna, a strong proponent for the rejection of IPPIS would cite the autonomy of universities as a key factor, accusing the Office of the Head of Service of meddling in the affairs of the universities.
‘We are not accepting that IPPIS is in any shape or form. ASUU will never accept IPPIS on our campuses,’ he said.
“Autonomy of Nigerian university is our problem, not the peculiarities in IPPIS…The Office of the Head of Service of the Federation has taken over the work of the university governing councils and vice-chancellors.
“We are asking that they take their hands off the universities.”
ASUU opted for the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as its desired platform for payment.
According to the body, the “benefits of UTAS to the university system (both public and private) cannot be found in any other software in Nigeria today.“
Yielding to pressure the government granted concessions to ASUU, stating it would work with the union to modify IPPIS to recognise the peculiarities of universities and the features of the lecturer’s preferred platform of payment – the UTAS.
ASUU has held its resolve in rejecting attempts at the FG’s enforcement of IPPIS with industrial actions that disrupted educational activities in 2022