The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has pleaded with the Federal Government to grants the union 18 months to develop their payment applications, the University Transparency and Accountability System, UTAS, as their preferred mode of payment.
ASUU had rejected the government introduced Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, and even embarked on a two weeks warning strike over the refusal of government to pay those that did not enrol in the payment platform.
BusinessDAY, reliably gathered that at the reconciliatory meeting between the federal government and ASUU, at the Conference Hall of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the union was asked to present its own template having rejected the IPPIS. A source at the meeting told our correspondent on telephone that the union at that juncture pleaded with the government to give them 18 month grace to go and develop the UTAS.
According to the source, “ASUU pleaded that it should be given 18 months to develop the UTAS. The union explained that developing the payment application software would take six months, the alpha testing of the equipment will take three months, what it calls Beta will take six months and rounding off the system to take three months.
“But the Federal Government team led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, asked the union what will happen in the interim. He told them that as the government waits for the 18 months for the development of the UTAS, they should in the interim enrol in the IPPIS starting from the middle of March, while special arrangements will be made to pay February salaries of those who have not registered with IPPIS “ According to the source, the Tuesday’s meeting which lasted till late night was inconclusive Recalled that the two parties had last week rescheduled the meeting to Tuesday, March 17, for them to agree on how the contentious IPPIS, which the federal government recently introduced for all workers within its payroll will be implemented.
ASUU had rejected the IPPIS which the government has made compulsory for workers on its employment and the union declared a two-week warning strike over the government refusal to pay them because they did not join in the new payment platform.
The government said that the IPPIS was introduced to curb corruption and also to eliminate leakages within the system. However, the Federal Government through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, at the resumed meeting on Tuesday said that it has made proposals to the ASUU on how to amicably resolve the issues in dispute.
After the resumed negotiations that ended about 11pm, Tuesday, both sides agreed to adjourn negotiations to allow ASUU to take the proposals to its members and to respond to the federal government in writing on the issues raised.
Briefing journalists at the end of the prolonged meeting, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Ngige, said the meeting discussed a wide range of issues, much more than anticipated.
According to him, “We discussed some of the issues in our 2019 meeting, those that were not fully addressed, and made new proposals on behalf of the federal government to ASUU. “These issues range from funding for revitalization of universities to earned academic allowances, salary shortfall that existed in only one university, that is the Federal University of Technology, Akure. “The issue of state universities and the coordinating committee and the issue of their meetings and interaction with national economic council, payment of earned academic allowances which has been done, the issue of the issuance of operational certificate to National University Pension Commission ( NUPENCO) to lecturers pension scheme for lecturers.”
Collaborating, the President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi(Prof), said the meeting made concrete progress. It will be recalled that the Tuesday’s meeting was meant to reach agreement on how to integrate the two payment platforms, Integrated Personnel and Payroll System (IPPIS) and University Transparency and Accountability System (UTAS).
Mark Mayah
