The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Port-Harcourt chapter has said that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information was targeted at violating the University autonomy.
The Chairman, Dr Austen Sado, while speaking to news men, stated that the introduction of IPPIS to tertiary institution was a political move, aimed at controlling the Universities.
Sado, advocated for the University system in Nigeria to be separated from the Civil Service control and manipulation if it is to develop.
He noted that IPPIS was built on the framework of the Civil Service, saying the platform (IPPIS) is not robust enough to face the peculiarities of the University system.
He said; “A lot of things are going wrong and nobody is able to give account. But the solution clearly is that they (Federal Government) must abrogate the use of IPPIS, because IPPIS is inimical to development, it is inimical to academic freedom.
If they want to put education on a pedestal of development, then the Universities must be insulated from the civil service control and manipulation.
That is where we are now; they are simply looking for how to have political control over the university so that they can also extend whatever they do not do politically to the universities.
“But that is inimical to development. IPPIS has clearly shown that the platform is not robust enough to handle the peculiarities of the universities. This is because IPPIS was designed for the Civil Service, and we (ASUU) are not of the same terms with civil servants.
“When they (Government) did a presentation to convince us on why we should do it (IPPIS), we pointed out that those peculiarities were not there. What they did was to say they would do it. But it is clear that they cannot, and they have not been able to do it. even those who enrolled are blaming themselves, there are multiple issues in the universities.
He further added that some universities are not in control and authority in the employment of lecturers.
“I hear that across the universities, IPPIS is already manipulating the employment procedure, some universities are already saying that employment is going on and they don’t have the departments.
“They (government) would just organize an interview and the departments are unable to vet the qualification of the people coming. This is a violation of the autonomy of the University.
“Employment in the university starts from the department. Even if somebody is to be employed in just one department of the faculty, usually, the Dean of faculty is the Chairman of the board of interviewers.”
ASUU had embarked on strike over the Federal Government failure to keep to the 2019 Memorandum of Action and over the lingering crisis on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
