ASUU’s objection to payroll unfounded, says Fed Govt

Nduka Chiejina, Abuja

THE Federal Government on Tuesday dismissed as unfounded, the objection of members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

The teachers were, however, assured that the payroll will accommodate and efficiently address their genuine concerns and peculiarities.

A statement from the Office Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), said the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris, gave the assurance when the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Federal Universities visited him in Abuja.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, while responding to concerns raised by the vice chancellors on the recent enrolment of university staff into the IPPIS, assured that ‘all rules and peculiarities in the universities that are recognised by the government will be accommodated and implemented through IPPIS’.

He directed the vice chancellors to get their lecturers to state “all the peculiarities rules of engagement equally; we are ready to go by the rules of engagement. All the rules that are recognized by the government in the universities, we will go by these rules, none will be set aside”, he said.

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Idris said the objection by ASSU to the IPPIS “is unfounded as the Federal Government has, during many meetings with the universities, assured them that the IPPIS was not to take away the autonomy of the universities, but to make the management of personnel more efficient.”

He stated that the practice where varsities recruit workers not minding whether their budget would accommodate such employment was responsible for the issue of shortfall in personnel revenue.

The AGF explained that the IPPIS would help the universities solve the problem of shortfall in personnel revenue as the recruitment and remuneration of staff would be more efficient.

According to Idris, 8,146 academic and 86, 844 non-academic staff of federal universities have been captured into the IPPIS as of the last count.

Saying that the figures represented more than 70 per cent of ASUU members, Idris solicited the cooperation of the vice chancellors with the government, ‘as the implementation of the IPPIS and other financial reform initiatives aimed at entrenching probity and transparency in the system have come to stay’.

Chairman of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, Prof Muhammad Bello, spoke on the challenges encountered during the just-concluded enrolment and urged the AGF to help resolve them.