01122019 - 13 states struggle for 7.5 metric tonnes of rice

SUNDAY VANGUARD, DECEMBER 1, 2019, PAGE 7
PAYMENT PLATF
TFORM HITS BRICK WALL:
We cannot be treated
as civil servants
...ASUU dares FG, rejects IPPIS, splits varsities
•Non Academic staff: Opponents are beneficiaries of
compromised system on campuses
be released to the Governing Councils and there are ways
of checking what goes on in the system and with the
funds”, he said.
“We have internal audit checks, external auditing too and
there is provision for the setting up of Visitation Panels to the
universities.
“Those saying we are not supporting the fight against
corruption have forgotten that based on the petitions written
by ASUU, at least three Vice Chancellors have been probed,
indicted and relieved of their positions.
“We must not be brought back to the core civil service again.
Do you know what the new system they are proposing will lead
to?
“Now, before a VC could employ even a cleaner, he would
have to clear from the Head of Service and go cap in hand to
the Accountant General for funds.
“We won’t support anything that will erode the autonomy of
the universities and eventually kill universities”.
What is the alternative?
Ogunyemi said his union has proposed an alternative
to IPPIS to government. He said the alternative would
be situated in each university.
The ASUU’s alternative, according to the Chairman of
the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile Ife chapter,
Adeola Egbedokun, is called the Nigerian Universities
Transparency and Accountability System’, NUTAS.
He said a committee had been put in place to work on
the alternative, saying it is at 33 percent completion.
He said the committee would soon conclude work on
the system.
According to him, the union has resolved that none of
its members would cooperate with any person from the
office of the Accountant-General on enrolment into IPPIS
By Adesina Wahab
The Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information
System, IPPIS, is not a new concept.
It was introduced by the Yar ‘Adua/Jonathan administration
in 2007 to centralise payroll at the Federal Government level.
Almost all federal workers have been enrolled in the system
except few ones including those in federal universities, a section
of which have been opposed to the exercise for a number of
reasons.
Recently the Federeal Government raised the issue again
when President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2020 budget
proposal to the National Assembly and he dropped the hint
that all federal workers must be enrolled, and whoever failed
would no longer receive salary.
To enforce the President’s directive, the Accountant General
of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris,
issued a notice that all affected workers
must be enrolled between November
25 and December 7.
It is in the AGF’s office that the IPPIS
is domiciled.
The statement rekindled the
opposition of some university workers
to the IPPIS. However, this time
around, workers in the university
system are no longer speaking with one
voice; they are rather speaking in
cacophony of voices.
The worker unions in the university
are the Non Academic Staff Union,
NASU, the Senior Staff Association of
Nigerian Universities, SSANU, the
National Association of Academic
Technologists, NAAT, the Academic
Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and
the newly created Congress of
University Academics, CONUA.
The ASUU’s
alternative,
according to the
Chairman of the
Obafemi Awolowo
University, OAU, Ile
Ife chapter, Adeola
Egbedokun, is
called the Nigerian
Universities
Transparency and
Accountability
System’, NUTAS
NASU position
The non-academic staff members,
who are members of SSANU and
NASU, are in support of the policy.
The two unions set up a Joint Action
Committee, JAC, headed by the National President of SSANU,
Samson Ugwoke.
Ugwoke, who said non-teaching staff are in support of IPPIS,
said it would check corruption and cleanse the system.
“We are in support of the enrolment of our members into the
system. It will check corruption and cleanse the system. Those
concerns being raised regarding Sabbatical, Earned
Allowances, Check off Dues, Cooperative Dues etc are being
taken care of”, he said.
“Those opposed to the system are the ones benefitting from
the corruption in the system. Now, most of the federal
universities are hiring hundreds of workers to cover up the
loopholes that the IPPIS will expose. Those talking about
Sabbatical, is it every year they go on it?”
CONUA’s stand
The National Steering Committee, NSC, of CONUA, last
week, held a meeting where it passed some resolutions on the
IPPIS issue. The resolutions were endorsed by the National
Coordinator, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, and National Publicity
Coordinator, Dr Ernest Nwoke.
The resolutions included, “That CONUA members are
in full support of every policy and effort of government
to reform the Nigerian Public Financial
System with a view to combating corruption
and thereby sanitizing our educational
system.
“That the IPPIS being one of such efforts is
welcome by CONUA in the light of
government’s assurance on accommodating
the peculiarities of the academia.
“That CONUA notes the Federal
Government’s promise to address any other
issue that may arise through the desk offices
to be placed in the Bursary Unit of each
university.
“That, in view of the foregoing, CONUA
implores members to enrol on the IPPIS
platform with a strong belief that government
would reciprocate our good faith.”
ASUU’s opposition
The opposition of ASUU to the policy,
according to the National President of the
union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, is not without
reasons. He faulted the fact that the circular
to enrol members originated from the office
of the Accountant General of the Federation,
saying university workers should not be
treated as civil servants.
His opinion is that university workers are
employees of the Governing Council of each university
as provided by law.
“Each university has the law setting it up. By the law,
the Governing Council is in charge of each university
and that is what the autonomy of the universities means.
Universities are not government agencies. Funds should
Why non-teaching staff not toeing ASUU’s line?
Up until this year, academic and non-academic staff
appeared to be on the same page on the matter.
However, they parted ways following the brouhaha that
followed the disbursement and sharing of the N100
billion Earned Allowances.
Going by the allegations levelled by the JAC of SSANU and
NASU, ASUU short-changed other unions in the system by
taking N80 billion out of the money.
The development led to a threat of industrial action by the
non-teaching staff who accused ASUU of treating them like
second class citizens in universities.
The matter is yet to be resolved.
Also, the non-teaching staff feel centralising the payment at
the federal level would bridge the salary gap between them
and their academic counterparts.
Third opinion
An accountant, Sunday Morakinyo, agreed that the
peculiarities of the university system must be taken care
of
Ḣe, however, opined that whether IPPIS would work or
not depends on the ‘Nigerian factor’.
“If the payment system is located at each university,
there is a limit to how it could be manipulated”,
Morakinyo said.
“For instance, the University of Ibadan, which may
probably be among those with the largest workforce, may
have 4,000 workers. There is a limit to how the VC or
anybody could inflate the figures, that is, inject ghost
workers.
“I don’t think it would be possible to add another 400 to such
a figure without detection.
“Now, if you have all the universities, with hundreds of
thousands of workers, being paid from the AGF office, apart
from other federal agencies and ministries, will the people
there not be overwhelmed?
“I know for sure that the Federal Ministries of Information
and Health with NTA, Radio Nigeria, NAN, teaching hospitals,
federal medical centres, among others, have hundreds of
thousands of workers, imagine a dubious worker in the AGF
office deducting just N1, 000 from their salaries, and how much
that will amount to?
“What those already enrolled are experiencing with regards
to the payment of some allowances cannot encourage others
to want to join it. “If we say some university administrators are
thieves and are abusing the system, the issue eventually could
be that you send away a cat from watching over a piece of meat
and now ask a lion to replace the cat”.
One thing is clear, no matter how the vexed issue of IPPIS is
resolved, unionism on Nigerian campuses can never be the
same again, especially between academic and non-academic
staff.