The rift between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) deepened yesterday as the federal government dismissed the union’s concern about putting lecturers on the centralised salary payment platform.
Reacting to the union’s objection to President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that federal government workers not on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) would not be paid salaries, the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris, fired back, saying that the union is not in a position to dictate to the federal government on how its members should be paid their salaries.
ASUU had summoned an emergency National Executive Council meeting, where it was agreed that the leadership of the union at chapter level should begin mobilisation of members for an action against the government over the implementation of IPPIS.
The academic community had all along expressed their reservations on joining the scheme, citing the autonomy enjoyed by universities as well as the peculiarities associated with the academic environment.
But the federal government had directed that any worker not on the IPPIS would no longer receive salary with effect from October.
In a statement by the AGF, and made available to newsmen, he blamed ASUU for the “misinformation being circulated by the union to justify their opposition to enrolling on IPPIS, a policy of government for which the president directed that all MDAs drawing their salary from Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF) should join by the end of October 2019.”
He wondered why ASUU would jettison a policy aimed at saving cost and wastages in the personnel cost of government.
“To meet the deadline of government, the process of enrolment is ongoing; we therefore, urge all university staff to ensure they enroll on to the IPPIS platform.
“It is pertinent to note that other unions in the universities have complied and the campaign of calumny against Office of the Accountant General of the Federation by ASUU is uncalled for and should be ignored,” he said.