Government-owned tertiary institutions have been yanked off the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, which has slowed down staff remuneration and recruitment, among other things since 2006.
The Minister of the Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said on Wednesday that the development is to make room for greater autonomy.
Minister Idris said the exemption of public tertiary institutions from the IPPIS was a joint decision of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, in response to the years-long clamour by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and other academic bodies.
“The universities and other tertiary institutions have got a very big relief from the IPPIS,” Idris said.
“You will recall that university authorities and others have been clamouring for exemption from this system. The Council has graciously approved that. What that means, in simple language, is that the university authorities and other tertiary institutions will now pay their personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS.”
The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Maman, said the federal government took the decision because it is “concerned about the efficiency of management of the universities.”
“The basic concern is that universities are governed by laws. And those laws give them autonomy in certain respects, and the IPPIS has sort of eroded that autonomy granted universities in accordance with their Acts,” Maman added.
ASUU, which resisted IPPIS from the onset while pushing for the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, welcomed the decision to scrap the rigorous payment system.
ASUU national president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke said, “The approval will change every wrong thing in the system, vice-chancellors, and our colleagues don’t have to run to Abuja for anything, and the issue of multiple employment, and wrong deductions, will no longer occur. Our colleagues don’t have to run to Abuja over infractions in their salaries.
However, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, is seeking some clarification on the issue.
According to the union’s president, Dr Anderson Ezeibe, “We are still studying the situation; we need to know what has led to this. We need to know the plans they have.”
“We don’t know whether they want institutions to be self-funding. We don’t want to be caught unaware. We need the policy documents. We need to know their plans. Until we see that we can’t give any reaction.”
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