BREAKING: FG excludes lecturers from IPPIS scheme

The Federal Government has excluded university lecturers from the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS), a scheme established to eliminate payment records of fraud within the civil service payroll system.

This was disclosed on Wednesday by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, after the conclusion of the Federal Executive Council meeting.

The IPPIS, conceived in October 2006 aims 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.

In order to check instances of double payment and payroll fraud, the federal government had ordered a stoppage of salaries of lecturers and all workers of tertiary institutions who are not enrolled on the IPPIS.

Since the action, there has been wide outcry especially from the lecturers union ASUU, which had rejected the federal government’s directive for workers to enroll in the centralised payroll system, saying it would affect the autonomy of universities.

Therefore, the union instead proposed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) “to address the peculiar cases of lecturers in the payment of salaries and other emoluments”.

In reaction, Idris said the FEC “graciously approved” the stoppage of IPPIS used to pay salaries of university lecturers.

He explained that going forward, tertiary institutions, the polytechnics and colleges of education lecturers would henceforth be taken off the IPPIS.

Idris said, “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 the others have been clamouring for the exemption of the universities and other tertiary institutions from this system.

“Today, council has graciously approved that. What that means is that going forward, the universities like the Honorable 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 be paying their own personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS.”