National Telescope national telescope newspaper
The federal government says it has concluded arrangements to enrol the federal universities in Nigeria on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) platform.
This, it said, will promote probity, transparency, and accountability in government expenditure and also achieve the desired objectives of governance in centralising payroll system
The Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, disclosed this at a meeting of Vice–Chancellors, Registrars, and Bursars of Federal Universities with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) held in Abuja.
According to a release obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Idris said the centralised payroll would be prepared by individual universities but co-ordinated by IPPIS, while the total management of the human resources would rest squarely with the Universities.
“The IPPIS scheme is one of the Federal Government’s reform initiatives which is designed to achieve among others: a centralized payroll system of the Federal Government, to facilitate easy storage, updating and retrieval of personal record for administrative and Pensions processing to aid manpower planning and budgeting as well as to comply with the global best practice,” he said.
He said before 2015, the total number of Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs) on IPPIS was 288, with a total staff count of 235,858.
At the moment, however, he said the total number of MDAs on IPPIS platform has increased to 561, with a total staff count of over 755,422.
Mr Idris also said the cumulative savings achieved on IPPIS platform between 2017 and 2018 was N273.8 billion, adding that the funds, which would have been lost, is now available for government spending.
He assured the senior staff of the universities that if they comply with the presidential directive on IPPIS platform enrolment, the IPPIS would accommodate all peculiarities such as sabbatical, visitation, honorarium and earned allowances, among others.
He said the universities should be the best ground for entrenching reforms towards transparency and good governance, urging them to embrace the scheme as government will not change its position on IPPIS enrolment.
Mr Idris said the Nigerian Police and paramilitary agencies are already being paid on IPPIS platform while the enrolment of the Nigerian Military – Army, Navy and Airforce have just been concluded and a trial payroll is ongoing.
Also, the enrolment of Federal Polytechnics is scheduled for early July, he added.
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed, described the IPPIS scheme as one of the best things that has happened to Public Finance Management. He said the platform is the best way to overcome some of the challenges affecting the universities.
Also speaking, the Director IPPIS (OAGF), Olusegun Olufehinti, said that every university would be involved in the enrolment process, He assured the university administrators of continuous engagement throughout the process.
