Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has stated that only one condition will end the four months strike that has shut university education in the country.
Newsonline reports that ASUU Chairman, Federal University Otuoke, Dr. Socrates Ebo, said a deep-rooted penchant for corruption within the government is frustrating the move by its members to call off the strike.
Socrates Ebo said government officials who are benefitting from the default IPPIS payment system are out to frustrate UTAS deployment, even as UTAS has been proven to be a flawless payment platform.
Ebo said the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, has been decisively proven to be a porous, easily compromised payment platform.
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ASUU Chairman said if the government is committed to wiping out corruption, IPPIS has been ineffective in curtailing waste of resources, stating that it has been used to pad payrolls and to effect all manner of fraudulent deductions from workers’ salaries.
Ebo in a statement said, “We definitely can’t continue this way, the adoption of a transparent payment platform is critical to resolving the current impasse in the nation’s university system. UTAS has been proven to be a flawless payment platform but the deep-rooted penchant for corruption in our government ethos is all out to frustrate its deployment.”
ASUU regretted that under IPPIS no lecturer can say for certain what his salary is, pointing out that what they find queer is the insistence of some government officials on the use of IPPIS when it is proven to be compromised and corruption-prone.
Ebo explained that UTAS has been designed to be corruption-proof, asking why the government would not be interested in a payment platform that is cheap, 100% corruption-proof, and 100% indigenous.
ASUU alleged that IPPIS made it possible for the Accountant-General of the federation to loot N80 billion and N70 billion.
