ASUU - update Asuu and Ippis struggle

The federal government had introduced the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System - IPPIS in 2006 to centralise the payment of salaries of workers with a view to detecting fraud.




This salary scheme presented by the federal government ensures that all federal civil servants, including lecturers are enrolled. This borders on transparency, accountability and fighting corruption at source. The introduction of the digital payrolls in the public service since then has helped to reduce fraud of multiple payments to ghost workers.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities – ASUU have refused to be enrolled in the programme. The consequence of this action has led to the ongoing industrial strikes action by the lecturers, with the depreciating effects on educational development of the nation and academic pursuits of the students.

The Federal Government had directed all federal tertiary institutions in the country to enroll in the IPPIS from February 2020.

FG-ASUU IPPIS Crisis
 

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has shun the directive of the federal government to enroll them into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) saying that it would affect the autonomy of universities. The ASUU union, among other issues, has embarked on an indefinite strike, arguing that the implementation of the IPPIS was against the FG-ASUU 2009 agreement.

ASUU has declared that IPPIS is a channel to siphon the federal government resources. They described that the $140million loan obtained by the Federal Government for the implementation of the IPPIS, as massive fraud. The federal government also took the $140million loan to procure software and train staff for implementing IPPIS in spite of the ASUU offer to provide a platform through University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

Presently, ASUU members are being paid through the said IPPIS without submitting themselves for data capture, biometric capture, BVN, etc. They thereby concluded that the centralized payroll system (IPPIS) can be manipulated and anybody can be imported into that system.

Furthermore, the ASUU members says that the federal government has been severing the lecturers’salaries through IPPIS. They removed from some people’s salaries, the pay slips and all the third party deductions are not included in the payments. There are a lot of irregularities in IPPIS and the federal government acting is indifferent to the corruption in the system. These goes to confirm the position of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), withdrawing their support for the IPPIS implementation. ASUU is currently working on alternative platform to IPPIS.

ASUU members now feel that their agitation is on the right path and that they won’t surrender to intimidation from the government.

The federal government accepts ASUU’s proposal on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution - UTAS with the given timelines of full implementation for the period of 18 months. In view of this, the Federal Government appealed to ASUU members to enroll on the IPPIS within the intervening period before the full development of the UTAS. And they shall be migrated to the UTAS when fully developed.