Socrates Ebo, the chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Federal University Otuoke (FUO) chapter has criticised the federal government for insisting on using Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
The university don frowned at the preference by the federal government to force IPIS which he described as a conduit pipe to squander public funds as a payment platform on public lecturers over the Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), preferred by ASUU.
“IPPIS has always been a conduit pipe for dissipation of resources as the report of the auditor-general of the federation has abundantly shown. It is an ineffective, easily compromised payment platform.
“By its own report, NITDA acknowledges that UTAS scored 99.3percent in the about 698 tests it conducted on UTAS. How do you fail a student that scored over 99percent in an examination? Welcome to Buhari’s special Nigeria.
“Is someone trying to get back at ASUU for rejecting the professorship award bazaar?
“Who on earth fails a student that has scored over 99 percent in an examination when 70 percent is the first-class grade?
“This is clear and irrefutable evidence of malicious intervention. It is clear someone up there is trying to get back at ASUU. Is there a racket associated with IPPIS? Why the desperation to protect IPPIS which scored an “F” when subjected to the same tests given to UTAS? Who is benefiting from IPPIS? Who are the players behind the mask?” Ebo noted in a statement.
ASUU had earlier denied the allegation that the union’s UTAS failed the integrity test as announced by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
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Emmanuel Osodeke, the ASUU president disclosed this while reacting to statements credited to both the minister of communications and digital economy and director-general of NITDA that UTAS had failed the integrity test.
“This press statement is necessitated by the need for ASUU to put the records straight on the grounds already covered in our patriotic struggle to get the government to deploy UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our university system.
“Let us put it on record that an integrity test was carried out by NITDA on August. 10, 2021 in NUC where relevant government agencies and all the end-users in the university system were present.
“At the end of the exercise, all, without exception, expressed satisfaction with UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our universities.
“This was attested to by the report coming from NITDA then to the effect that UTAS scored 85 percent in user acceptance test (UAT),” he said.
Ebo reiterated in his statement that a report of the auditor-general of the federation had shown that IPPIS is an ineffective, easily compromised payment platform.
He said that a report by NITDA earlier rated UTAS as excellent, insisting someone must have been plotting to get back at ASUU amid the desperation to protect IPPIS.
