The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has approved the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for the payment of lecturers in Nigerian universities.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) revealed this on Sunday in a statement, following an emergency meeting of the Union’s National Executive Council (NEC), held on Saturday.
In the statement, Osodeke referred to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS), engineered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as evil, stressing that the continuous use of the IPPIS had distorted the payment of the salaries of lecturers.
He wondered why it took more than one year to get the needed feedback on the home-grown solution of UTAS at a time Nigeria is yearning for “local content”.
The ASUU President stressed that the Union was fully prepared to address all the technical observations made by NITDA in order to make the immediate deployment of UTAS happen.
“NEC is pleased that the end-user evaluation report overwhelmingly endorses UTAS for immediate deployment by government for Nigerian universities. On our part, ASUU is fully prepared to address all the technical observations made by NITDA in order to make this happen.
“Our hope is that the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other agencies of government would promptly respond to issues that concern them in the NITDA’s report to pave way for speedy migration to UTAS and spare Nigerian universities of the evil effects of the IMF/World Bank-engineered IPPIS,” Osodeke stated.
Meanwhile, ASUU in the statement indicated that it has placed the decision on when it’s members will embark on the next bout of industrial strike action threatened by the Union on hold, stressing that the situation would be reviewed at a later date.
Osodeke stated that this was in consideration of ongoing intervention and consultation efforts by different interest groups within and outside Nigeria to make government address all outstanding issues arising from the December 2020 MoA.
The ASUU President, however, expressed worries by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances (EAA)
The statement noted NEC’s regrets that the Federal Government has turned its back on plan to set up an inter-ministerial committee to review the draft Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement to enable the parties conclude a negotiation process which began in March 2017.
The Union in the statement specifically accused the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba of failing to follow through with the promise made during a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives on 19th November, 2021.
“The Minister assured us that the process of reviewing the document would be set in motion within one week from that date. Hon. Nwajiuba’s failure to fulfil a promise made in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly is not only provocative but reminiscent of trust-deficit that has bedevilled all agreements and understandings reached with this government and those before it since 2009,” Osodeke stated.
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