SSANU expresses support for IPPIS

Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has reiterated its support for the enrollment of its members to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS of the federal government.

The union however said this is subject to the accommodation of all peculiarities in the university system as agreed in the various meetings held between the government and the university-based unions.

The union in a communiqué signed by its national president, Comrade Samson Ugwoke and the national public relations officer, Comrade Abdussobur Salaam at the end of its 37th National Executive Council, NEC meeting at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State also advised the government to without further delay, release the balance of N30 billion Earned Allowances in the interest of industrial harmony in the universities.

SSANU also commended the government for the closure of the country’s land borders, saying that the action of government has improved the local production sector especially in agriculture.

SSANU in the communiqué demanded that the Audit Reports of all disbursements of  Earned  Allowances   be made public in order to guide   government in subsequent   disbursements.
According to the communiqué, “NEC noted that the resolve of SSANU to join the IPPIS platform was in support of government in its bid  to entrench  transparency and   accountability in  the university system  and to curb the  spate of personnel  corruption which is one of the reasons accountable for the declining standard and rot in the Nigerian University system.

“NEC urged the federal government to remain firm and resolute in its bid to stop corruption in all facets of our national life and resolved to give support to the government in all efforts to ensure that sanity is restored to the Nigerian university system.”

In its resolution on Earned Allowances, the union recalled that the Joint Action Committee of NASU and SSANU had embarked on a five day warning strike between Monday 19th and Friday 23rd August 2019 to press home its demand for the payment of N30 Billion (Thirty Billion Naira) being part payment of arrears of Earned Allowances being owed members of NASU and SSANU.

It further recalled that the federal government vide a memo dated 18th June 2018 and signed by the Director Tertiary Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, had conveyed the release of the sum of N25 billion for the payment of Earned Allowances for staff of federal universities.
Alleging that due process and established protocols for disbursements of allowances were breached in order to allow for the” anomalous payment”, it said that “the pattern adopted for the payment was a gross violation of the University Autonomy Laws because the Governing Councils who by law are vested with the power of  identifying and allocating allowances to staff in their various universities were bypassed while the Registrars and Bursars, being custodians of all University records in terms of allowances and remunerations were not involved in the processes leading to the allocations of these monies.