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ASUU to present alternative payment platform to govt, says IPPIS is ‘a business venture’

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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it is ready to present an alternative payment platform to the Federal Government that will achieve better result when compared with the current controversial Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, the ASUU President, stated this in a letter addressed to Zonal coordinators, chairpersons, and members of the union in Ibadan by the Chairman ASUU, University of Ibadan, Professor Ayo Akinwole, adding that the union would make the initial presentation of its University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to the Federal Government.

Professor Ogunyemi described IPPIS as a business venture of some interest groups in Nigeria, whose profit margin increases by the increasing number of University staff they are able to capture, also called on members of the Union not to waiver in their resolve to reject the IPPIS.

According to him, the deliberate withholding and distortion of salaries by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation are ploys to hoodwink and arm-twist members to swallow their vomit on IPPIS.

It would be recalled that ASUU has been on strike to get unfulfilled agreements signed with the federal government implemented and negotiate befitting conditions of service for her members including salaries, while opposing the IPPIS.

Despite stiff opposition by the union, the federal government insisted on emigrating members of the union in federal varsities.

Read also: ASUU kicks against Rape Bill, says it may lead to male lecturers refusing to teach female students

The ASUU President also assured members that once the issue of payment platform is sorted out, the union will then pursue to a logical conclusion the main demands behind the ongoing strike, maintaining that as a collective, the union will be able to “negotiate and secure what is good for Nigerian academics and our university system”.

The letter reads in part: “As expected, the vested interests are uncomfortable with the emergence of the university transparency (UTAS) because of its potential for exposing the IPPIS fraud”.

“The impression earlier created was that no further payment of salaries could be made without “data capture”.

“However, the IPPIS office has forcefully migrated all academic staff in federal universities to the platform and what is being done now is to “formalise” the process.

“Deliberate withholding and distortion of salary paid by the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) are ploys to hoodwink and arm-twist ASUU members to swallow their vomit on IPPIS.

“At this stage, it is unedifying to see ASUU members filling to the Bursar’s Office of OAGF for IPPIS data capture. Apart from betraying the Union, many of those who attempted to “go solo” have also been ridiculed beyond description. Even non-members respect the ASUU for its informed and principled position on IPPIS.”

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