The Senate, has launched an investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption levelled against officials of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, at various universities across the Federation.
This was a sequel to a motion by Senator Ifeanyi Ubah ( YPP, Anambra South) during Wednesday’s plenary, noting that since the introduction of IPPIS, over two million federal government employees across 696 ministries, departments, and agencies, including some staff of federal government-owned universities and other tertiary institutions, have been reportedly captured on the IPPIS platform.
Ubah, maintained that the allegations of bribery, corruption, delayed capturing and payment of salaries of newly recruited staff of federal government-owned universities have cast serious doubt on the credibility and suitability of IPPIS as a platform for managing the payroll of university staff as institutions clothed with autonomy for the purposes of teaching, learning, and research.
The Senate, after debate, resolved to investigate the allegations of bribery and corruption against IPPIS officials at various universities across the federation.
The Senate also resolved to hold an interactive session with the Head of Service, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Chairman of the committee on Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, and other relevant stakeholders after it constitutes a committee on tertiary institutions.
Recall that IPPIS was introduced in 2007 to administer the monthly payroll of the federal government’s workers in a manner to guarantee confidence in staff emoluments, and this had led to disagreement between the Federal Government and ASUU on the preferred payment for Nigerian university staff at different times.
FG insisted on IPPIS as the best payroll for the university system but ASUU rejected and recommended the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, as a better alternative.
Since the introduction of the IPPIS, the university body has embarked on several strike actions to show their displeasure with the payroll method introduced by the Nigerian government.
Credit: Punch Newspaper
