IPPIS: Between claim and reality

Sir: The reaction of the Director of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), Olufehinti Olusegun, on the recent Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on why the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) are not on the scheme ‘‘because the agencies are revenue -generating entities,” is one that lent no credence to the fact that the transparency and accountability of the system is merely a claim and not a reality. This is so because the exemption of the said agencies in question contradicts the presidential directive.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari, during the 2020 budget presentation at National Assembly directed all federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies staff to be enrolled into the system. Also, the Accountant General of the Federation had on several occasions affirmed that the directive is binding on all federal staff. Then why the exemption of the said agencies? For this reason, the explanation on why these agencies are not integrated into the system by the scheme’s Director is incredibly acceptable, unmerited and purported with dearth evidence, too weak to be justifiable. So ASUU, security agencies and other federal civil servants are easy going and jejune for encroachment? ASUU is right that the scheme is a scam!

Is this not asserting that there is something fishy within the corridor of the IPPIS that the AGF is trying to hide?  Despite Olusegun’s concerted effort to credit and influence Nigerians on why the said agencies are exempted from the system, his effort has proved abortive. Are the exempted agencies not part of the federal establishment? Why should revenue generating agencies be exempted from audit? Are the exempted agencies immune to be affected by the problem of ghost workers, salary padding, multiple salary payment, improper employment record and illegal recruitment? Isn’t this a brazen selection of the so called war against corruption? 

Nigerians are gullibly deluded to have believed earlier that the system will surface transparency across all Federal Government establishments. Nigerians thought that it will be a system that will be holistically implemented without exempting any sacred cow. Surprisingly, however, it appears to be targeting ‘soft’ agencies with a dearth claim that they are not revenue generating institutions.  It’s funny that the CBN and FIRS that coordinate our national revenue are at liberty to manage it as they wish.

The first set of people that the government should enroll if it is serious about mopping excess liquidity, curbing corruption are revenue generating agencies. If some agencies remain docile cows to some few individuals and cannot be integrated into the system, then abandon it entirely.
Rabiu Musa, an intern with PRNigeria Centre, wrote from Kano.