By Joy Odor
The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has presented a new payment platform to the Federal Government through which their salaries will be paid.
The platform, known as University Peculiar Payroll Payment System (U3PS), was presented to the Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu, in Abuja on Tuesday.
The SSANU President, Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim while speaking on the issue believed that the platform if approved, would accommodate all stakeholders in the university system including academic, non teaching staff, and academic technologies.
The SSANU President was of the opinion that since the government said IPPIS was going to be use to fight corruption, they join hands with government to give IPPIS a trial, but what they encountered was full of inconsistencies.
Comrade Ibrahim informed that because of the much inconsistencies their members could no longer bear, necessatated foundibg technical and ICT experts that can help them to develop an alternative to IPPIS called U3PS believed that all the inconsistencies in the IPPIS would be resolved.
“We believe then that since the government said IPPIS was going to use to fight corruption we should join hands with government to give IPPIS a trial and we went through IPPIS from the first month to second and third, to fourth and there about it was full of inconsistencies.
“So much that our members could no longer bear and within us we found out that we have technical and ICT experts that can help us to develop an alternative to IPPIS which is called the University Perculiar Personnel and Payroll System (U3PS) where we believed that all the inconsistencies in the IPPIS will be resolved.
“Like our counterparts, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the non academic unions had rejected the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the Federal Government for the payment of workers’ salaries” he said
Receiving the proposed document, the Education Minister maintained that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) would have to carry out an integrity test on the platform and stressed the need for one payment platform that could serve worker in the Country.
“I must also tell you that I’m not an expert to know that this one is workable or better than what is already available or better than what is been proposed by ASUU but what I know is in the end, probably we have to accept the situation where your own may have some edge in a particular area, UTAS may have an edge and then these two can be used to make IPPIS better butm the ministry and the government is always open to new idea.
