The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has withdrawn its initial support for the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
With this development, it joined the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which had all along rejected the implementation of the government payroll platform, for its members across the Nigerian universities.
The non-academic workers’ union, which had initially supported the initiative, said its trust in the system was betrayed by the Federal Government “as reflected in the various irregularities noticed in the payment of February salaries of its members.”
In a statement issued on Monday and signed by the union’s spokesperson, Abdulsobur Salaam, SSANU noted that all peculiarities it identified before the implementation, and which the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and other implementing partners agreed to incorporate, were disregarded in the implementation.
The statement reads in part; “Kindly recall that we keyed into the IPPIS with an understanding that all the peculiarities in the University system, particularly pertaining to our members would be adequately addressed, especially the issues of allowances, appointments, increments, third party deductions etc. Various concerns were raised and our fears were allayed through various correspondences, meetings and practical sessions where the application was displayed and all issues brought forward were addressed. It was only after exhausting all the queries and getting satisfactory answers that our union, SSANU and its JAC counterpart NASU, decided to key into the platform in the overall interest of the system and our members.
“It is therefore shocking to us that our first real taste of the IPPIS application is totally different from what was presented. All the concerns raised by our unions were not implemented and disregarded. Apart from the breach of trust which has now manifested, our members across the universities are groaning from various anomalies witnessed in their salaries thereby forcing them into great hardships which they never bargained for when they keyed into the IPPIS. As a leadership, this is totally unacceptable! The recent development has once again shown, despite our attempts to test otherwise, that Government can never be trusted and as such, based on what we have been subjected to with the February salary, we do not blame our lecturer counterparts, ASUU, for resisting the IPPIS from the beginning.”
The union has, therefore, requested the government to stop using the new platform to pay its members, and that reversal to the old platform of the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), would be appreciated.
EduCeleb.com recalls that ASUU reached an agreement with the Nigerian government to integrate IPPIS into its proposed University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) so as to take care of the peculiarities of academics.
But SSANU, in its statement, warned against such integration and deployment for, its members.
“…While we place on record, the right of ASUU to reach an understanding with Government on this hybrid payment platform, we note that this can only be implemented for ASUU members as at today and if it is to be implemented across board, it must be with the consent of the other university based unions.
“Having keyed into the IPPIS project and gotten an unsavory first taste, we shall not accept any other payment platform which does not carry us along. If UTAS is a general University payment platform, we must be guaranteed that its features accommodate the peculiar needs and challenges of the non-teaching staff in the system. If this is not guaranteed, the hybrid application shall be rejected in totality by our members,” the statement added.
EduCeleb.com earlier reported on Sunday that the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) had alleged government’s betrayal in the implementation of the IPPIS.
It identified the irregularities in the February salaries of its members paid, saying that the IPPIS disregarded its members’ peculiar allowances, and particularly, the Peculiar Earned Academic Allowance (PEAA).
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