The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has decided to exclude universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and other tertiary institutions from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) payment platform.
The exemption approval was granted by the FEC during its Wednesday meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, announced the immediate implementation of the decision during a briefing with State House Correspondents following the FEC meeting.
What the Minister said
According to him, the FEC noted that Vice Chancellors of Universities shouldn’t have to interrupt their work by travelling to Abuja for the salary processing of their personnel.
- “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 options of platforms.
- “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 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,” Mamman said.
More Insights
On his part, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Muhammed Idris, said that tertiary institutions have gotten a big relief with this new development.
He noted that university authorities and other tertiary institutions will now be paying their own personnel from their end instead of relying on the IPPIS.
- “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, 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 be paying their own personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS,” he added.
This is a welcome development in the right direction? But we can not, for life, forget the 8 months salary indebtedness, hoohaa!!
Where were all these people, now in the FEC ,when that IPPIS AUTOCRACY was being enforced on us all? What did they EACH say?
We should ALSO wait for their verdict on the SINGLE TREASURY ACCOUNTS that ruined many internationally funded research in the Nigerian tertiary institutions while financial corruption was busy rocking that past federal government while all the members of the present one said absolutely nothing, wherever they were then! MC.
This truly is a very much welcome development which commend this government for,they have demonstrated compassion and reasoning, they have proved to be radical departure from the former intransigent,heartless administration,who have no regards for the people.
However the 8 months withheld salaries will solve lots of issues and endear this administration.
If lecturers are let loose again to operate In their universities and be paid by the authorities, who has the authorities to examine and assess their performancebecause one cannotbe a judge in his court, this may force them to maintain consistency at work in their institutions. There is the need to subject them to scrutiny by the federal government. There is pressing need to establish series of strong committee of some retired academics among our emeritus professors and vice chancellors and rectors of higher institution along various disciplines who would combine their wealth of knowledge to assess every federal government institution’s research works throughout the year, based on the relevance, meaningful contribution of their research works to our nation’s policy agenda and development. The relevance of their published research with foreign collaborators in developing trends in technology, engineering scientific discovery from where applied inventions could be initiated, expanded, and promoted for domestic use and fot exportation. This will help the nation to add to global knowledge and clear sources of foreign earning for our country. Let each lecturer be evaluated by the students to which they impact knowledge so that we keep them on their toes to stay around and do good job once va evaluation, verification and recommendation or appraisal become annual exercise for update of their knowledge and contribution in academics and largely in the country. Many discoveries by our youth were not developed to creative innovation to benefit the university and the nation. Most scientific discovaries made by the youth in the country went down the drain while some were sponsored by a few philantropists and finally sold to the investors in the Europe for further development because our Professors are not encouraged by the government through financing, assessment, scrutiny and celebration of merit-based outcome of research. TET-FUND scheme failed to maximally achieve its objectives because of lopsided and prefential treatment. If we want knowledgeable Nigerians be made to believe that their efforts would be acknowledged and compensated, let the Federal government make critical review of its research and development scheme policy on a level Plain ground, that will stop our potential researchers from wasting their active part of their live in foreign institutions just because of work standard, good salary, stable infrastructure ture and security. Consistent and good result-oriented research can never be achieve without those aforementioned factors. Government must stand by the higher institutions to develop their own infrastructure in the campus. When the result is reliable they can replicate it in the cities where theose institutions are located and by and large across the nation. Some universities in the Eastern Nigeria are generating independent power for campus use, what prevent the government from demanding from and supporting others to follow the suits. The Presidential Villa must be operating on independent power supply that must be made by out universities, likewise the National Assembly, Judiciary complex and the Federal Secretariat if the government needs to get the best end products of its supports for the Nigerian Higher Institutions.
CORRUPTION fights back, and will continue to thrive in Nigerian public universities with this development…
Why would anyone interested in transparency be against IPPIS, a system that has uncovered thousands of ghost workers and other payment anomalies in the Nigerian public sector? The childish excuse that VCs have to physically travel to Abuja to enroll new staff on the IPPIS system in the digital age is not only a self-indictment of the ineptitude of many Nigerian universities but is an excuse that can only fly with a analogue-era president. SMH