ASUU: We’re not affected by Buhari’s directive on IPPIS

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says its members are not affected by President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent directive that only federal workers on Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) would be paid salaries.

Buhari had while presenting the 2021 budget at a joint session of the national assembly on Thursday, ordered all federal workers to enroll into the IPPIS platform.

He had added that the platform was meant to check fraud, including the payment of salaries to non-existent personnel.

But reacting to the president’s directive in an interview with NAN on Saturday, Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU president, said the workers referred to were civil servants.

“The directive was meant for civil servants; university academics are not civil servants,” he said.

“We have an understanding with government to develop an alternative platform which would be sensitive to the operations of the university and accommodate its peculiarities.

“The platform we are developing will also respect the autonomy of our universities as obtained globally.

“The idea of seeking clearance from the Head of Service or the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation is alien to university operations because it will halt its flexibility.

“The University Miscellaneous (Provisions) (Amendment)Act (2003), which government gazetted as University Autonomy Act (2007), has vested the powers of personnel and payroll system issues in the hands of each university’s governing council.”

Ogunyemi said the union had on January 9, 2019 reached an understanding with Buhari to develop its proposed University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for testing and adoption for managing personnel information and payroll system in the universities.

He added that “what is left is to present to other major stakeholders, particularly in the ministry of finance, budget and national planning.”