Some varsity teachers are being owed between 15 and 16 months’
salaries, the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU), claimed on Sunday.
![image](/2020/10/lawreport.jpg")
![image](/2021/05/tellcom-Esq.jpg")
The union said those mostly affected are lecturers who went on
sabbatical. The claim could not be verified last night.
![image](/2021/01/payne-alex.jpg")
The varsity teachers accused Office of the Accountant-General of
the Federation (OAGF) of deliberately frustrating the lecturers to
a point of desperation in order to capture them on the
controversial Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System
(IPPIS) of the government.
ASUU’s continued rejection of the payroll system, led to the
introduction of the University Transparency and Accountability
Solution (UTAS). It was developed by the university lecturers.
ASUU President Prof Biodun Ogunyemi told The Nation in a chat
that the OAGF refusal to pay his colleagues amounted to a violation
of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) ASUU signed with the government
last December before it called of its nine month strike.
He said: “On the government side they will say they have paid
all the arrears but you can’t say you have paid all the arrears
when some of our members are still being owed. Where that is
happening, we cannot agree that government has paid all the
arrears.
“Our members are still being owed. We are still tracking the
payment; the have been done in bits but as at today we still have
some of our members, pockets of our members on our campuses that
are not yet paid.
“In fact some of our members have not been paid their salaries
for 15 – 16 months. We have members who have not been paid for
fifteen to sixteen months. Some of them who went on sabbatical they
don’t pay them and they are pushing them to the point of
desperation, as a way of capturing them on IPPIS.
“We see that as a violation of our Memorandum of Action which
was signed in December, 2020: that our members will be paid their
salaries through hybrid platform until we finalise the integrity
test on UTAS.
“What the consultant to IPPIS has been doing is to instigate the
Accountant-General’s office to threaten our members that they will
not be paid if they don’t register on IPPIS. Those of our members
who made inquiries and went as far as Office of the Accountant-
General of the Federation they told them point blank that they will
not be paid unless they register on IPPIS.
“We are collating information on that and we are prepared to
take it to the highest level in the land before we consider what is
to be done about what the AGF and the consultant on IPPIS are doing
to our members.
“Denying workers their salaries is a punishment and it violates
all known trade union laws that we know. If people can be denied
their salaries for fifteen to sixteen months because they don’t
want to succumb to the pressure (of registering on IPPIS), our
union will consider the best way to handle them after taking
everything to all the appropriate levels.
“The same thing with the check off deductions. We have seen that
the AGF office is withholding the check of deductions of our
members. Although we have been advised to compile all of those and
send to the appropriate government quarters which we have done the
first time but because many were left out we are doing it
again.
“We are engaging government agents on all of these and we hope
that a stop will be put to this hide and seek game being played by
both the Accountant General as well as the consultant to
IPPIS.”
Ogunyemi also lamented the slow pace of progress on UTAS by the
National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA).
The ASUU leader said: “We are also complaining to government on
the slow pace of NITDA in finalising the integrity test on
UTAS.
“If we had an understanding that the process will be completed
as fastly as possible, we suspect that the IPPIS consultants are
putting pressure or they are discouraging the finalisation of UTAS
so that they can continue to put our members for the platform that
we have rejected.”
Some varsity teachers are being owed between 15 and 16 months’
salaries, the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU), claimed on Sunday.
The union said those mostly affected are lecturers who went on
sabbatical. The claim could not be verified last night.
The varsity teachers accused Office of the Accountant-General of
the Federation (OAGF) of deliberately frustrating the lecturers to
a point of desperation in order to capture them on the
controversial Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System
(IPPIS) of the government.
ASUU’s continued rejection of the payroll system, led to the
introduction of the University Transparency and Accountability
Solution (UTAS). It was developed by the university lecturers.
ASUU President Prof Biodun Ogunyemi told The Nation in a chat
that the OAGF refusal to pay his colleagues amounted to a violation
of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) ASUU signed with the government
last December before it called of its nine month strike.
He said: “On the government side they will say they have paid
all the arrears but you can’t say you have paid all the arrears
when some of our members are still being owed. Where that is
happening, we cannot agree that government has paid all the
arrears.
“Our members are still being owed. We are still tracking the
payment; the have been done in bits but as at today we still have
some of our members, pockets of our members on our campuses that
are not yet paid.
“In fact some of our members have not been paid their salaries
for 15 – 16 months. We have members who have not been paid for
fifteen to sixteen months. Some of them who went on sabbatical they
don’t pay them and they are pushing them to the point of
desperation, as a way of capturing them on IPPIS.
“We see that as a violation of our Memorandum of Action which
was signed in December, 2020: that our members will be paid their
salaries through hybrid platform until we finalise the integrity
test on UTAS.
“What the consultant to IPPIS has been doing is to instigate the
Accountant-General’s office to threaten our members that they will
not be paid if they don’t register on IPPIS. Those of our members
who made inquiries and went as far as Office of the Accountant-
General of the Federation they told them point blank that they will
not be paid unless they register on IPPIS.
“We are collating information on that and we are prepared to
take it to the highest level in the land before we consider what is
to be done about what the AGF and the consultant on IPPIS are doing
to our members.
“Denying workers their salaries is a punishment and it violates
all known trade union laws that we know. If people can be denied
their salaries for fifteen to sixteen months because they don’t
want to succumb to the pressure (of registering on IPPIS), our
union will consider the best way to handle them after taking
everything to all the appropriate levels.
“The same thing with the check off deductions. We have seen that
the AGF office is withholding the check of deductions of our
members. Although we have been advised to compile all of those and
send to the appropriate government quarters which we have done the
first time but because many were left out we are doing it
again.
“We are engaging government agents on all of these and we hope
that a stop will be put to this hide and seek game being played by
both the Accountant General as well as the consultant to
IPPIS.”
Ogunyemi also lamented the slow pace of progress on UTAS by the
National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA).
The ASUU leader said: “We are also complaining to government on
the slow pace of NITDA in finalising the integrity test on
UTAS.
“If we had an understanding that the process will be completed
as fastly as possible, we suspect that the IPPIS consultants are
putting pressure or they are discouraging the finalisation of UTAS
so that they can continue to put our members for the platform that
we have rejected.”