The Federal Government may be adopting any of the alternatives payment platforms that would be developed by universities and other unions in Nigeria.
The universities union had given an alternative to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and in which including the Academic Staff Union of Universities proposed its University Transparency and Accountability Solution to the Federal Government, the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union presented University General and Peculiar Personnel and Payroll.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment, spokesperson, Charles Akpan, who disclosed the Federal Government intention said the payment platform tendered by the unions must eliminate ghost workers’ ailment including any form of corruption in the payment of salaries.
Though ASUU who had on March 23 begun an indefinite strike due to the opposition of the payment system, other unions supported it but Akpan stated that the FG’s IPPIS was only suitable for the civil service.
According to the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the IPPIS would restrict the university system if adopted.
Ogunyemi said, “With the IPPIS, lecturers cannot move freely across campuses; across countries. It is a system that will not allow you to employ people from outside the country, people who are not on pensionable appointments because the IPPIS focuses only on people with pensionable appointments. Contract staffs that are needed in scarce areas are shut out. Our colleagues in the Diaspora who could come and give international flavour and enrich our programmes are shut out. If you have a system that will not allow you to fit into global practices, that system cannot fit into a university.”
He said the IPPIS would crumble the autonomy of the university system which was established by an Act in 2003.
Ogunyemi added, “The IPPIS was designed for the civil service, which has a uniform approach to payroll. In the civil service, they have to take permission from the head of civil service before they can employ. That is not possible in university education because a university operates a flexible payroll system by the virtue that lecturers can come for short employment and sabbaticals.”