The Federal Government has approved the exemption of Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education and other tertiary institutions of learning from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, (IPPIS).
It said, henceforth, remunerations to staff members of these institutions would no longer flow through the platform.
Minister of the Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed this to State House Correspondents after yesterday’s week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the State House, Abuja.
The FG reasoned that the IPPIS does not afford tertiary institutions the freedom to run their affairs, Idris said.
He explained that: “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 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 pay their personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS.”
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who explained the rationale for the Council’s decision, said the goal was to allow for the efficient running of public educational institutions nationwide. He argued that yesterday’s move is not connected to the integrity of IPPIS, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, or other similar systems advocated by various bodies.
Recall that in October 2006, the Federal Government introduced the IPPIS as one of its reform initiatives for the effective storage of personnel records, saying the move would improve transparency and accountability.
IPPIS, which was expanded to cover all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that draw personnel costs from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, has been touted by the government as a means of saving billions of Naira and improving transparency in salary payments.
However, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), the umbrella body for lecturers in Nigerian universities, resisted the implementation of IPPIS within universities, arguing that it undermines university autonomy and does not accommodate the unique nature of academic work.
