The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) has insisted on the migration of academics in tertiary institutions to the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).
UTAS is an ingenious alternative pay platform innovated by ASUU.
The President of the union, Dr Smart Olugbeko, made this known in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday.
Olugbeko said that the insistence on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) had opened the payroll up to unilateral manipulations and fraud perpetrated by individuals.
“Insistence on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) by the Federal Government constitutes a ridiculous contradiction to the acclaimed anti-corruption posture of the present administration.
“The recent letting open of the can of worms in the OAGF where the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has uncovered a fraud not less than whooping sum of N80 billion sufficiently vindicates our union’s position that IPPIS is a fraud.
“Apart from undermining the statutory functions of the Governing Councils and breaching the establishment integrity of the tertiary education and the COE system, IPPIS opens the payroll up to unilateral manipulations and cool fraud.
“In fact, we dare say that the N80 billion discovered by EFCC is merely a tip of the cankerous iceberg of wanton fraud enabled by the questionable pay platform,” he said.
Olugbeko called on the Federal Government not to delay in migrating academics in tertiary institutions to UTAS.
According to him, UTAS adequately addresses our concerns on payroll security and the peculiarities of the tertiary education system in general.
“It should be adopted for the entire academic staff in tertiary education sector as it takes care of the peculiarities of the institutions including financial autonomy, sabbatical service, administration of discipline and fraud prevention.
“In the last one year, our COEASU has received complaints from more than 1,000 academic staff in COE who have had their salaries stopped, mutilated and or delayed.
“IPPIS arbitrarily stopped the salaries of some lecturers for four months in 2021 and the salaries have not been paid till date in spite all efforts made to get the salaries paid.
“IPPIS is notorious for making third party deductions from workers’ salaries for cooperative associations, union dues, special contributions, among others without remitting the deductions,” he said.
The president said that complaints due to the use of IPPIS had led to wastage of manpower and resources as the end of every month brought fear of not knowing the ‘style’ of payment that IPPIS would unleash.
According to him, in February our salaries are further reduced by IPPIS without any justification.
He, therefore, called on the Federal Government to adopt the home-grown UTAS developed by ASUU as a payment platform for academics in the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. (NAN)
