With or Without UTAS, ASUU Must Adopt IPPIS System, Says FG

Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, said the Federal Government had tried its best to meet the demands of ASUU.

He explained: “As we are now, the Visitation Panels for all the universities have been approved and it is in the Federal Ministry of Education for gazetting. The gazetting will make for the announcement of the lists and swearing in. All the panels will go to their various universities and work for six weeks. Hopefully, the list will be announced this week.

“Also, the renegotiation team will be named this week. Since Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN) is out as the chairman of the negotiating committee.

“ASUU leaders wrote to the government that they have developed their UTAS and it is ready for testing. The Federal Government wrote to the agency that can do testing, which is the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), to accept from them their system and subject it to test without fear or favour or bias and as quickly as possible.

“It was only last week Thursday that ASUU passed on the documents on UTAS and everything for transmission to NITDA. Just last week.

“But the government still insisted that they must be on IPPIS because whether you like it or not, even with UTAS developed, you must have a handshake with IPPIS.”

” Again other unions in the universities claimed that they have developed their own system too. These are National Association of Technologists, SSANU and NASU.

“They said they have developed a system which they gave another name too. They said they will never be part of UTAS; they said they should be counted out of UTAS.”

Ngige claimed that only three key issues needed to be resolved.

“The first issue is that ASUU is insisting that the Revitalization offer of N20billion for universities is unacceptable. They said they can only take N110billion. The government is saying we do not have N110billion to give you, it can only afford N20billion.

“Secondly, they said N30billion for Earned Allowances is for ASUU members only. The government says no, it is for all the unions in the universities because that is the agreement we reached earlier before we went into subsequent negotiation with these other unions and made offer to them.

“Thirdly with all these agreements, what is the mode of payment if we are going to pay you all these salaries and allowances tomorrow? In the meanwhile, you said you should be exempted from payment portal. The GIFMIS portal for universities has been dismantled, it does not exist anymore.

“The government is saying ASUU should get on to IPPIS, whenever your portal is ready, you migrate back to UTAS. That is where we are. Those are the three issues for determination.”

ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, in a statement on Sunday, said the rumor that the GIFMIS platform was used in paying ASUU members’ salaries before been dismantled should be completely ignored. He claimed that some of its members received part of their withheld salaries last week despite not been registered on the IPPIS platform.

According to him, the union has reduced demand on its outstanding revitalization fund of one tranche, N220 billion by 50%.

“For instance, our members have reduced their demand of one tranche (N220b) of the outstanding revitalization fund by 50%. The Union has also agreed that N30b out of the so far verified arrears of N40b of the earned academic allowances (EAA) be paid to our members while the balance of N10b could be spread over the next two tranches.”

The ASUU president confirmed that progress has been made on certain issues but the main bone of contention is the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).