We reject new IPPIS – ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nsukka zone, on Tuesday rejected the emergence of a new Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

Our correspondent reports that ASUU over the past four years had a running battle with the Federal Government over IPPIS, a payment platform which the union argued negates university autonomy.

Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Raphael Amokaha, while briefing journalists in Makurdi on a text entitled, “Let The Lecturers Breath”, said it was disturbing that soon after the present federal government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu directed the immediate removal of universities from the IPPIS, an introduction of a new one has surfaced.

Amokaha said the news by the president through the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had directed the immediate removal of universities from IPPIS and was received with delight by the union.

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“Regrettably, this directive is yet to be complied with. More disturbing though is the emergence of a ‘new IPPIS’! We do not understand what the ‘new IPPIS’ means but the directive of FEC was explicit, remove the universities from IPPIS, so whatever contraption someone has sprung up with whether new or not, it is still IPPIS and stands rejected.

“We are however, concerned that somebody somewhere can so flagrantly disregard FEC directives. It can be inferred from observations that the people that are benefitting from IPPIS are not ready to let go of the federal universities for their pecuniary benefits hence the transformation from IPPIS to new IPPIS.

“We urge government to immediately fish out those behind this recalcitrance and call them to order,” he said.

The zonal coordinator emphasised that the IPPIS breaches the university autonomy law and serves as a conduit to siphon public funds, hence the resistance of the union to the IPPIS, a position which in his estimation had been vindicated by the revelation made since the arrest of the former accountant general of the federation.

He wondered why the government would not rather adopt the homegrown payment software – University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) – developed by ASUU and offered free of charge even after the software passed three tests with 95 percent average score.

Amokaha added that the union urged the federal government to also pay all their salaries instead of offering them four months out of the eight months owed them since they did not do a fraction of the work on return from the 2022 strike.