Corruption: ASUU Challenges FG To Conduct Integrity Test For IPPIS
By Amarachukwu EgwuAgha, Abakaliki
The Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo( AE-FUNAI) branch has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to conduct a public integrity test for the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) of its members nationwide.
This is even as the union challenged the anti-corruption mantra of the government of the center.
The Union in a statement by its media team asks FG to conduct a public integrated test for IPPIS as in University Transparency and Accountability Solution UTAS.
The union frowned at what they described as lies, half-truths that have been told by the federal government on the true situation of things.
The statement reads in part,
“Over the past three months, the Nigerian news space has been inundated with tantrums, lies, or half-truths mischievously peddled by four ministers or their agents in government against ASUU, after the latter rolled over its strike yet again, over the government’s insensitivity and inability to honor its agreement with the Union. The key components of the Lecturer’s demands are Improved conditions of service, deployment of UTAS as the payment platform for University workers, and revitalization.
“Almost all the time spent (or wasted) so far on this current strike has been dissipated on testing and counter-testing the homegrown UTAS, developed free of charge by ASUU and presented to the government as a preferred means of paying University workers, as against the foreign, profusely error-prone IPPIS, which is roundly guilty of amputating the salaries of University workers. As of the last count, the aggregate performance integrity test result of UTAS stood at 99.3%, whereas the government has failed to subject IPPIS to even half of the integrity tests, it insisted that UTAS must pass.
“ASUU challenges the government to conduct a public integrity test for IPPIS the same way UTAS has gone through if it is sincere in its anti-corruption mantra!
“As is common with this government and its agents, when available facts or records are against them, they simply resort to shifting the goal post to find excuses and escape routes. In the current circumstances, the facts of ASUU are stacked against them, but Chris Ngige and the Education ministers, Adamu Adamu and his former junior minister, Emeka Nwajiuba, have been applying Fabian tactics in addressing the renegotiation of the University workers’ conditions of service, long overdue since 2012.”
