IPPIS suspect, conduit pipe to siphon public resources, ASUU alleges

The Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) has described the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as a “tunnel created to siphon government resources.”

In a statement yesterday in Akure yesterday, the ASUU branch chairman, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Dr. Olayinka Awopetu, claimed IPPIS was “a weapon of fraud and corruption.”

He noted that events in the last four months of using the platform for university staff had confirmed that the platform is not only fraudulent but also a “corruption on steroids and fraud on a roller coaster.”

According to him, “events of the last few months have not only vindicated the position of ASUU, but they are also proving that serious fraud could be going on through IPPIS if not urgently checked.”

He claimed that names of academics had been arbitrarily injected into the platform, “even without any registration or capturing of their biometrics.”

The ASUU chair claimed: “The answer is blowing in the winds, but this is of very grave consequences and Nigerians should be worried. President (Muhammadu) Buhari should be most bothered as the AGF office can now willfully inject ghost names into the payroll of any MDA or university without being detected.

“Some academics, who had not registered and on sabbatical, were fraudulently enrolled on the system and were paid their February and March salaries in April 2020.”

He further alleged: “A third of this group was paid twice for one month.

“Worst still, deductions were made for National Housing Fund which does not apply to university staff while union dues deducted are not remitted to the union.

“Not done with their fraud, many staff were placed on grades and levels different from the true positions.

“The AGF office has now paid most academics the two-month salaries President Buhari ordered to be paid, but fraudulently through their IPPIS system and exposed the fraud built into the system further.”

He added that “the academic pay schedule was mangled: some were not paid at all; many of those paid cannot understand what they were paid, as there were no payslips, many were clearly underpaid; deductions are haphazard, and many other complaints.”