Officials of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, have disclosed that the integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, the university Transparency Accountability Solution, UTAS and the University Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System, U3PS all have failed the integrity test as a payment platform for the university system. NITDA made this known when it was summoned by the House of Representatives together with the Head of Service, Folasade Yemi-Esan, and officials of the Academic Staff Union, ASUU.
The House of Reps invited the Minister of Labour and Productivity the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Director-General of the Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, and the Director-General of the Budget Office to appear before its committee yesterday Thursday over ASUU strike.
According to NITDA, the Federal Government had in year 2020 October directed its office to subject UTAS to a test where the platform both failed the test conducted on it.
He disclosed that when UTAS failed the first test, NITDA asked them to go back and work on it where it did and came back for the second time where it did not meet its requirement.
Subsequently, NITDA was directed to conduct the integrity test on the three platforms, IPPIS, UTAS, and U3PS all in an effort to settle the university payroll issue but failed to pass the test.
However, the Speaker House of Reps queried NITDA if at any time they have drawn the attention of the federal government to the fact that IPPIS had also failed as it has already been deployed by the federal government.
The NITDA official replied that the NITDA was not in a position to do that at the time.
NITDA was then asked whether they had at a point queried the IPPIS for being porous and their answer was no.
Buttressing the Speaker’s view, his Deputy, Wase expressed concern that since NITDA discovered that laps in the platform, it was in their jurisdiction to advise the government to reconsider.
Interjecting Wase’s remark, the Head of the service explained that the ministry of communication and Digital Economy transmitted a memo to her office concerning NITDA observation about the IPPIS on the need to review the whole matter, but the work was referred to a committee.
Folasade added that IPPIS is not just a payment platform but also has a human resource component which all government agencies had been directed to activate, noting that all those directly under her purview had since complied.
In his contribution, Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes, and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, said the agency advised the government to first look at the possibility of an upwards review of salaries of the staff in the entire sector, comprising universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education before deploying the platform.
He explained that though it was done where professors were given higher consideration than their academic counterparts in percentage.
However, he denied knowledge of any agreement between the Federal Government and the ASUU for salary increment.
In his defense, the Accountant General of the Federation argued that and any setup, the employer cannot dictate to his employer how he should be paid as long as there is payment, therefore faulted ASUU for insisting on UTAS.
