The Academic Staff Union of Universities has said the current model being used by the Federal Government to run federal universities has turned vice-chancellors of the institutions to errand boys.
ASUU President, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, noted that a situation whereby vice-chancellors were constrained to go to Abuja over issues pertaining to funding, recruitment and running of the institutions was a mockery of the peculiarity of universities and the autonomy they should enjoy.
Ogunyemi, in an interview with one of our correspondents on Friday night, explained that the Federal Government’s insistence that all its agencies and institutions must be on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System was an attempt to return universities to the civil service. He stressed that the union was against the move.
President Muhammadu Buhari had during the presentation of the 2020 budget proposal to the joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja directed that any Federal Government worker not captured on the IPPIS platform by October 31 would no longer receive salary. He said it was part of government’s efforts to manage personnel costs in line with the fight against corruption.
The President said, “Accordingly, I have directed the stoppage of the salary of any Federal Government staff member not captured on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System platform by the end of October 2019. All agencies must receive approvals before embarking on any fresh recruitment and any contraventions of these directives shall attract severe sanctions.”
While ASUU kicked against the directive, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said on Thursday that no government agency must resist being enrolled on the IPPIS platform.
