ASUU meets with Senate:  Introduces UTAS as alternative to IPPIS

 

• Lawan advises FG against signing agreements it cannot implement

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has introduced an alternative to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) to the Senate leadership.

The President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, said this on Monday while addressing reporters after a three-hour closed-door session between the union and the leadership of the Senate.

According to Ogunyemi, ASUU proposed the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, a home-grown system that would end the eight-month industrial action by the union if embraced by the Federal Government.

Ogunyemi further noted that the visit to the Upper Chamber was a follow up to the earlier one held in October 2019 between the body of lecturers and the leadership of the Senate, where ASUU had told the leadership of the House that it would design an alternative to the IPPIS, which would accommodate the peculiarity of the university system.

According to him, “We had a positive meeting which was cordial and we are going to continue from there. We will still meet again to continue from where we stopped.

“We have developed what we call University Transparency and Accountability Solution. We have presented it to the Senate today and the Senate President commended it.

“We are going to present the platform to other stakeholders. UTAS is home grown while IPPIS is foreign.

“We have shown that we are inventors, we are creators of software and we are also capable of doing what our colleagues are doing in other parts of the world”.

At the meeting, Senate President Ahmad Lawan advised the Federal Government not to sign agreements with industrial unions if it cannot implement them.

He noted that it is wrong for the nation’s universities to be shut indefinitely and for parents to seek admission for their wards in less than standard universities in neighbouring countries.

Lawan said the meeting with ASUU leadership was meant to explore how the Senate could help to resolve the lingering issues between the Federal Government and the union.

He urged the Federal Government and ASUU to shift ground to end the lecturers’ lingering strike.

Lawan said: “Our children are the main victims of this. Therefore, both government and ASUU have to find a common ground for our universities to open and offer the kind of services expected of our universities.

“We cannot afford, as a country, to continue to have this kind of crisis. This may explain why those that can afford will normally go out of the country, even to West African countries, like Ghana, to receive university education.

“I believe our universities can be better, but they are better than most of these universities that our children go to in other African countries, particularly.

“The idea is to find out how we can resolve the outstanding issues, and it is supposed to be give-and-take. Government cannot have all its way and I believe ASUU should not expect to get everything it has asked for.

“Our situation today is something that everyone knows what it is. It is a very stressful economic situation and I believe that government is supposed to, even within this type of situation, play its own part.

“Its obligations must be redeemed within the confines of what we can do. But ASUU, I know, is prepared to meet government halfway somehow because I am sure we have joint determination to resolve these issues.

“The National Assembly is the best place to go because while on one hand we are a government; on the other hand, we represent the people. We represent you. We represent the families and the children who are now at home because the universities are shut.

“I think, as parliamentarians, we have to tell the truth as it is, no matter how bitter it may be at the right place and at the right time.

“When we sign agreements, we must do so with full intention of implementing them. And when we negotiate, we must negotiate in such a manner that the final product will be implementable.

“This is to say that we have to accommodate each other with government doing what it is supposed to do and ASUU, being the body of our lecturers, stands to protect its members.

“But everybody else in the country must ensure that our universities remain open and functioning because it does not do anybody any good when the universities are shut.

“In fact, we just simply retrogress or at worst stagnate. We should work together to be able to find an accommodation.

“This meeting is for us as a Senate to look into areas of disagreement and see where we can find an accommodation for ASUU as well as for government to be able to implement the agreements…”

Also, the House of Representatives member representing Oshodi/Isolo 1 Federal Constituency of Lagos State, Bashiru Dawodu, has advised ASUU members to enroll into the IPPIS.

Dawodu spoke against the backdrop of the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari in his 2021 budget presentation to a joint session of the National Assembly that Federal Government workers not captured in the IPPIS platform will no longer be paid their monthly salary.

The lawmaker said the effort was geared towards fighting corruption in the country.

“Nigeria is a tough country to govern. I believe the issue of IPPIS is geared towards fighting corruption and removing ghost workers from the system.

“So, I expect the university workers to understand what the government is saying and collaborate with them.

“If you are not accepting the pay system the government is introducing, it means that you don’t want Nigeria to move forward. I am not unaware of the challenges in the system, especially when it started.”