By ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi –
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the federal government for all civil servants encourages corruption.
The Bauchi Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Lawan Abubakar, stated this at a press conference at the ASUU Secretariat of the Abubakar Tafawa Balew University Chapter, on Wednesday.
He said that the Union had information of incidences of corruption in the IPPIS in some universities and Polytechnic with some shaddy deals involving some of the staff of government handling the IPPIS.
According to him: “When the IPPIS team came to enroll staff of universities here, there were some gaps, some shaddy deals that took place and new employments were made and it is those new employees that the IPPIS captured. The team that came too benefitted.
“Every month, we get the list of those that have enrolled, when we collected the list and looked through, majority of them we don’t know meaning, they are new employees of the universities but it has always backfired.
“In UniMaid, up to 2,000 employments were made because maybe that university has been receiving excess personnel cost and with the IPPIS, they quickly employed because they wanted to hide that time.
“The recent incident that happened here, the Federal Polytechnic, IPPIS sent them a huge sum of money and the leadership of the in-house Unions were confused because that was not the remittances they’ve been getting. Simply, if everything remains quiet, now ICPC has quickly come to investigate. They invited some of them, they spent some time in Abuja and they have returned.”
He added that: “When we sat with government last week on the issue of shortfall, they said they have solved that issue but we told them that the Federal University of Technology, Akure was complaining, which had N100 million shortfall in one of the salaries which they admitted knowing.
“They promised to pay them on or before Friday last week, the sum was just N100 million but they paid them N314 million. When we were told, we asked our branch there to write to the University to request the university to take their money and return the excess.
“Why will IPPIS be giving you too much and at the end, follow you to collect the excess with the hand? A lot of handshakes are taking place. In fact, people will be on your payroll and they are not your staff, that is common with IPPIS.”
Abubakar said that even if all these issues are settled, their members are not going to get enrolled in the IPPIS saying that the strike will still not be called off because the issues of IPPIS, UTAS, withheld salaries and any other payments are contiguous.
He said that some of their members registered in the IPPIS because they are weak and could not withstand government’s refusal to pay them their salaries.
“Really, there are some of us that will cannot bear this weapon of war the federal government is using, the weapon of hunger, the weapon of starvation.
“There are some of us that are quite weak, our capacity to withstand this is not the same, so the weak ones have yielded but I am assuring you they are a very insignificant number, that is what is scaring government all this seven months, they cannot get 20% enrolled in the IPPIS.
“In fact, there are universities that have recorded zero enrollment. In University of Jos, only three people out of more 2,500 academic staff, enrolled and even those three are looking for a way to opt out and they cannot. It is not all of us are strong, and we have found out the majority of these academic staff, enrolled fraudulently,” he stated.
Also speaking, a former Bauchi Zonal Coordinator of the Union, Prof. Nanmwa Voncir, said that “the IPPIS people are meant to stop corruption, but the people came to capture us and they helped us to corrupt the system the more because they were given slots for employment, massive employments were undertaken.”
He said that ASUU did not go on strike because of IPPIS but for other issues that the government has refused address.
“Even the press itself has fallen for the antics of the Government, this Union did not go on strike because of IPPIS at all, and IPPIS is in the center stage, if you check anything on universities and strike today, it is IPPIS. It is being portrayed as if we are on strike because of IPPIS.
“We are not on strike today because if IPPIS. If government likes today, let it activate UTAS and say we are not on IPPIS, and adopt it, the strike will not yet be over. The issue of IPPIS was brought in later on through the backdoor by the government as a distraction.
“If they think that it is a battle, we will add to it, the real battle is the 2019 agreement. We want to say it clearly that we are on strike for different reasons to implement the MoAs,” Abubakar stated.
He said that even if the issue of IPPIS is settled today and even if the government pays them the backlog of their salaries, “the strike will still continue.”
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