The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has expressed strong displeasure over the irregularities witnessed in the payment of February salaries for its members using the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The Association expressed its view in a statement signed by Mr Salaam Olayiwola, SSANU National Public Relations Officer, and made available to newsmen on Monday in Abuja.
According to Olayiwola, IPPIS is government payment platform, which we keyed into, with the understanding that the platform would greatly improve personnel accountability in the system thereby reducing the spate of corruption in our universities.
“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.
“Also, especially the issues of allowances, appointments, increments and third party deductions among others.
“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, ” he said.
He explained that it was only after exhausting all queries and getting satisfactory answers that the union and its Joint Action Committee counterpart Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, decided to key into the platform in the overall interest of the system and its members.
Olayiwola added that it was shocking to them that their first real taste of the IPPIS application was totally different from what was presented. All the concerns raised by their unions were not implemented and disregarded.
He said apart from the breach of trust, which had now manifested, the members across the universities were 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.
“As such, based on what we have been subjected to with the February salary, we do not blame our lecturer counterparts, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), for resisting the IPPIS from the beginning.
“It is on the strength of the above that we demand that the office of the Accountant General of the Federation reverts us to the GIFMIS platform, which was working seamlessly before IPPIS was introduced.
“It is getting clearer that our trust in government and its agencies on the IPPIS issue was clearly misplaced, ” he said.
He, however, added that an understanding had been reached with ASUU to integrate the ASUU proposed University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) into the IPPIS.
“While we place on record, the right of ASUU to reach an understanding with the 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.
“We demand that Government immediately looks into the anomalies witnessed in the February 2020 salary payments through the IPPIS platform and ensure rectification of these anomalies because the situation as at today cannot guarantee industrial peace in the system,” he said.(NAN)
