What is IPPIS and why is ASUU against it?
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is the umbrella body of university lecturers in Nigeria, appears to hate something called ‘IPPIS and is threatening to shut down the nation’s universities because of it. It has resolved to embark on a general strike early next year if the IPPIS policy isn’t stopped. We try to explain the furor behind it all. What is this IPPIS and why is it annoying the lecturers so much?
The meaning of IPPIS
IPPIS is an acronym for the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System. The IPPIS Secretariat is a department domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF).
The IPPIS project, which commenced in 2007, is responsible for payment of salaries and wages directly to the bank accounts of federal government employees as well as appropriately deduct and remits third party payments from the salaries of federal government workers.
Some of these third party deduction channels are; Federal Inland Revenue Service, State Boards of Internal Revenue, National Health Insurance Scheme, National Housing Fund, Pension Fund Administrator, Cooperative Societies, Trade Unions Dues, Association Dues and Bank Loans.
Meaning that if you are a federal employee enrolled on the IPPIS, your tax or housing fund is deducted from your salary before the salary hits your account.
There are currently about 459 MDAS (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies) on the IPPIS platform and its processes and pays the salaries of over three hundred thousand (300,000) federal government employees across the 459 MDAs.
Think of IPPIS as a platform controlled by the government and one that integrates and harmonizes payments of federal employees. The platform is said to be able to weed out ghost employees from the payroll through its technology-driven processes.
What does Buhari make of IPPIS?
President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power on the back of his vaunted anti-corruption and security credentials, loves the IPPIS. It was after all on his watch that all government revenues were harmonized and channeled into one account called the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Any tool that promises to curb corruption was always going to get the president’s vote. So it was no surprise when on October 8, 2019, as he presented the 2020 budget proposal before lawmakers, President Buhari vowed that any federal employee not captured on the IPPIS should forget receiving a monthly salary, beginning from October 2019.
President Buhari says no IPPIS, no pay for federal government salary. ASUU members and all federal university lecturers belong in the bracket of individuals on the federal government payroll.
President Buhari said; “We shall sustain our efforts in managing personnel costs, Accordingly, I have directed the stoppage of the salary of any federal government staff that is not captured on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform by the end of October 2019.
“All agencies must obtain the necessary approvals before embarking on any fresh recruitment and any contraventions of these directives shall attract severe sanctions,” the president warned.
Lecturers kick against it
President Buhari’s directive has not been well received in the offices of lecturers. ASUU, which is led by Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, views the enforcement of the IPPIS as it relates to lecturers, as an infringement on its autonomy. He has also called IPPIS “a scam and a threat to national security.“
“The system does not, for example, capture the remuneration of staff on sabbatical, external examiners, external assessors, and Earned Academic Allowances. It does not address the movement of staff as in the case of visiting, adjunct, part-time, consultancy service, which academics offer across universities in Nigeria,” Ogunyemi said.
He added that “The implementation of IPPlS in Nigerian Universities will further localize their operations and perspectives, thus negatively impacting their ranking in the global academic community.
“For example, the promotion exercise in the Professional Cadre, which is subject to external assessment that may last for several months; in such cases, when the outcome of the exercise is returned positive, the beneficiary is paid arrears from the beginning of the assessment process. But this cannot be captured by IPPIS.
“The IPPIS does not recognize the 70 years retirement age of academics in the professorial cadre, and 65 years for those in the non-professorial cadre, as against the 60 years in the civil service.
“Technically speaking, IPPlS is a scam. It creates more problems than it pretends to solve. The IPPIS system only recognizes staff members that are on permanent and pensionable appointments.
“The IPPIS restricts the ability of universities to employ much-needed staff at short notice. Such staff, when recruited, may not be paid until cleared by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), thus creating avenues of corruption. The dynamism associated with staff recruitment will become cumbersome with the introduction of IPPIS,” Ogunyemi said.
He added that IPPIS will not allow for deductions from staff salaries arising from legally sanctioned union and cooperative society activities. “This will directly infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right of staff to association.”
Young lectures excited with IPPIS
Some Assistant Lecturers are excited about the IPPIS coming to the university payroll system. “Those of us who are younger and junior lecturers love IPPIS and we want it. The university always makes funny deductions from our salaries and we have been grumbling about that for years. Now, with the IPPIS, they won’t be able to do that because our salaries will hit our bank accounts straight from the federal account.
Dr Joe Abah baffled
A former Director in the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr. Joe Abah, says ASUU’s hardball over the implementation of the IPPIS makes no sense.
“President Buhari is paid from IPPIS, as are judges. IPPIS hasn’t fixed their retirement age at 60 years. The military is on IPPIS. They have allowances and foreign duty. But let’s continue to be held hostage by ASUU and to prioritize political interest over national interest.
“The government should use the ASUU rejection of IPPIS as a starting point to the dismantling of the unworkable system of managing tertiary education in Nigeria. No employee should be able to dictate to their employer the payment system the employer should use. Enough is enough!”, Abah fumes.
