The Federal Government announced on Wednesday a significant policy shift affecting the nation’s tertiary institutions. Federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education have been exempted from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
This decision implies that staff emoluments in tertiary institutions will no longer be processed through the IPPIS platform. The move is expected to streamline the payment process and increase efficiency within these institutions.
Prof Tahir Mamman, Minister of Education, announced the policy shift after this week’s Federal Executive Council meeting at the State House in Abuja.
Prof Mamman said “Today, the council directed that universities, polytechnics and colleges of education should be taken out of the IPPIS service. This decision was made to allow for efficiency in the management of the universities and tertiary institutions in general.”
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In 2020, the IPPIS was at the focus of a legal and public dispute between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government, resulting in a 9-month strike from February to December.
The Buhari administration maintained at the time that the IPPIS was critical to ridding the university system of non-existent personnel and ensuring greater accountability.
However, on Wednesday, President Tinubu’s new government overruled that rationale, noting that the IPPIS system has made recruitment time-consuming due to the necessity to obtain permission and approval from the Head of Service.
“Simply, the President and the council are just concerned about the universities, and so it has nothing to do with integrity or platform options,” he said.
“The President cannot understand why bice chancellors should leave their duty post and run to Abuja to get staff enlisted on IPPIS when they get recruited.
“The basic concern is that universities are governed by laws. And those laws give them autonomy in certain respects and the IPPIS has sort of eroded that autonomy granted universities by their act.”
