About 96,090 out of the 137,016 academic and non-academic staff of federal government-owned universities have so far been captured in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari last year, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said on Thursday.
The minister said this at a meeting between President Buhari and the leadership of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) led by its national president Professor Biodun Ogunyemi at the State House in Abuja.The minister urged ASUU to encourage the remaining 40,926 members to comply with the presidential directive on capturing all federal government employees in the IPPIS.
She said a desk has been opened in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for registration of university staff, assuring that peculiarities of the tertiary institutions would be accommodated.
The minister said many anomalies were discovered in the university structures that have contributed to the increased cost burden, which include staff working and earning pay in more than one university, contract staff on payroll of the government, tax reductions on PAYEE and multiple employments.She said some universities had rushed to recruit more staff before the IPPIS registration commenced,m which was detected.
“While it is clear that ASUU has peculiarities, it should be recognised and rightly accommodated, and the allowances will be made, and not leaving the university out of IPPIS because of the peculiarities,’’ she said.
Also speaking, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha, urged ASUU to comply with IPPIS in national interest as his office was already in the process of streamlining all issues of human resources in government.
Also speaking, Minister of Education, Mr Adamu Adamu, and the Minister of Labour and Employment. Dr Chris Ngige, assured that the federal government was committed to improving the educational sector, promising to work closely with ASUU.
Speaking on the IPPIS and university operations, national president of ASUU Professor Biodun Ogunyemi said the federal government’s Visitor initiative to the universities at least once in five years was the best guarantee for monitoring accountability processes that include internal and external audit processes.
H said the IPPIS would be a “disruptive intrusion,” stressing “IPPIS violates the laws of the federation, violates university statutes, and violates agreements between the Federal Government and ASUU.’’
The government should welcome ASUU’s ongoing innovation of a robust system of human resource management and compensation called the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, which would address peculiarities of universities and end inappropriate recruitments,” he said.
