THE FEDERAL government on Wednesday finally bowed to pressures from tertiary education trade unions by resolving to exempt universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other tertiary institutions of learning from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who explained the rationale for the Council’s decision to State House correspondents, said the goal was to allow for the efficient running of public educational institutions nationwide, a position of tertiary education unions that had fallen on deaf ears of the federal government under the Buhari government.
Prof Mamman noted that Wednesday’s decision is not connected to the integrity of IPPIS, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, or other similar systems advocated by various unions in the tertiary education subsector.
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“Simply, the President and the Council are just concerned about the efficiency of management of the universities, and so it has nothing to do with integrity or platform options.
“The president cannot understand why Vice Chancellors should be leaving their duty post and run to Abuja to get staff enlisted on IPPIS when they get recruited.
“The basic concern is that universities are governed by laws. And those laws give them autonomy in certain respects and most respects and the IPPIS has sort of eroded that autonomy granted universities in accordance with their act.”
Also expatiating on the decision, the Minister of the Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, told State House correspondents that this week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the State House, resolved that henceforth, staff salaries of workers in tertiary institutions would no longer be paid through the IPPIS platform.
He re-echoed Prof Mamman’s narrative stating that the IPPIS does not guarantee tertiary institutions the freedom to run their affairs, Idris said, vindicating the firm position of particularly Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU).
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“Today, the universities and other tertiary institutions have gotten a very big relief from the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System. You will recall that the university authorities and others have been clamouring for exempting the universities and other tertiary institutions from this system.
“Today, the Council has graciously approved that. What that means is that going forward, the universities, as the Honourable Minister of Education has said, and other tertiary institutions, the polytechnics and colleges of education will be taken off the IPPIS.
“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.”
It could be recalled that the federal government conceptualised the IPPIS in October 2006, as one of its reform initiatives to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in the storage of personnel records and administration of monthly payroll in such a way to enhance confidence in staff emolument costs and budgeting.
It was later expanded to cover all ministries, departments and agencies that draw personnel costs from the Consolidated Revenue Fund as government continuously argued the system is a means of saving billions of naira and improving transparency in salary payments.
The policy had since then faced stiff opposition from ASUU which argued that it undermines university autonomy and does not accommodate the unique nature of academic work. To overcome government’s insistence, ASUU instead proposed and developed an alternative system called the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), which it believes will better addresses the peculiarities of the university system, such as sabbatical leave, adjunct engagements and part-time contracts.
ASUU and other tertiary education unions contended that IPPIS centralisation impedes the governing councils’ ability to effectively manage personnel and payroll, affecting strategic planning and the autonomy of universities.
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This has led to tensions and a protracted standoff, with ASUU continuing to push for the adoption of UTAS over IPPIS, which they see as a foreign-imposed system unsuitable for the Nigerian tertiary education sector.
Despite government’s attempts to enforce IPPIS, ASUU has held firm, leading to strikes and disruptions in academic activities, including an eight-month industrial action in 2022.
