Why CBN, NNPC Are Not On Our Platform —IPPIS – TheNigerialawyer

The Integrated Personnel Payroll Integrated System says the
Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and a few other
agencies are not on their platform because these agencies are
revenue-generating entities.

IPPIS further stated that these agencies do not draw their
funding from the consolidated revenue account but may be enrolled
in the platform later.

The Director of IPPIS, Olufehinti Olusegun, said this on
Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday.

Olusegun said this while reacting to complaints by the Academic
Staff Union of Universities that the Federal Government was partial
in its implementation of the IPPIS initiative by exempting the CBN,
NNPC and other government agencies.

ASUU, which has rejected the initiative outright, had argued
that if staff members of CBN, NNPC and others could be exempted
from IPPIS, then it should not be made compulsory for university
staff.

Responding to a question, Olusegun said, “The President’s
directive was direct that all Ministries, Departments, Agencies or
institutions drawing their salaries from the consolidated revenue
fund, which is a Federal Government account, are to key into
IPPIS.

“The government knows that all agencies cannot be brought on
board at the same time. But for those who draw their salaries and
personnel costs from the consolidate revenue account of the Federal
Government, they must come on board.

“For the CBN, FIRS and NNPC, they are revenue agencies and they
live on the cost of collection. They are revenue-generating
agencies and they don’t draw from the consolidated revenue fund.
So, it is left to the government on what to do next but it is a
journey that just started.”

He said so far, over 937,000 federal employees including the
military are on IPPIS.

The director said the initiative had been able to save billions
of naira belonging to the government which had hitherto been
entering private pockets.

However, the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, argue
that universities cannot be categorised as a ministry, department
or agency.

Ogunyemi said in the IPPIS blueprint, universities were not
supposed to be captured in the scheme.

The ASUU President said IPPIS, if implemented, would affect the
ability of universities to attract visiting professors.

He said, “Just three weeks ago we were at the headquarters of
the African Union in Addis Ababa where scholars in the Diaspora
came together to think of how best they could help revitalise
higher education in Africa and a lot of case studies were
presented.

“The case of our late friend, Prof. Pius Adesanmi, who was until
his death, the Director of African Studies in Carlton, Canada, came
up for mention. This professor was a visiting professor at more
than three universities in Africa.

“In fact, the Director of African Studies in Legon, Ghana,
recalled that Adesanmi was on their payroll as a visiting scholar
and he would be visiting for at least three months and he would go
back and he did that for more than five years. He did the same for
two other universities in South Africa.

“In Nigeria, going by IPPIS arrangement, there would have no
room for that. Even if a scholar in the Diaspora is coming to
Nigeria for one-year sabbatical bringing a lot of experience, IPPIS
arrangement would not accommodate such.”

Responding to allegations by the National Universities
Commission that over 100 fake professors were recently exposed, the
Vice-Chancellor, Kano State University of Technology, Prof. Shehu
Musa, said it was very possible that the fake professors worked for
fake universities.

He noted that the NUC had in recent time alerted the public to
the existence of many fake universities and so it was not out of
place to also have fake professors as well.