By NAOMI SHARANG

The Senate is investigating allegations of bribery and corruption of staff of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) officials at various universities.

The alleged action by the officials had resulted to delayed capturing and payment of staff of Federal Government-owned universities who were recruited as far back as 2020.

The resolution followed a motion by sponsored by Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP-Anambra) during Wednesday’s plenary.

The motion was tagged “Urgent Need to Investigate the Alarming Cases of Delays in Payment and Allegations of Corruption associated with the Capturing and Payment of newly recruited University Staff under (IPPIS)”.

Ubah recalled that the system was introduced by the Federal Government in 2007 as a reform measure aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness in the storage of federal government employee records.

“And also administration of their monthly payroll in such a manner as to guarantee confidence in staff emolument costs and budgeting.

“The primary motive for the introduction of IPPIS was to take advantage of existing ICT on personnel and payroll management in other parts of the world.

“So as to ensure that ghost workers are eliminated while bona fide Federal Government employees are paid accurately and timely.”

He further said that since its introduction in 2007, over two million federal government employees across 696 MDAs, including some staff of federal government-owned universities, had been reportedly captured on the IPPIS platform.

“The use of IPPIS for storage of personnel records and management of staff payroll in those universities was a thorny issue between the government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) during the recently suspended strike embarked upon by ASUU.

“While the government insisted that IPPIS remains the best personnel records and payroll management system to be used for storage of records and management of payroll of university staff.

“The union took a different position, recommending the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as an alternative that is most suitable for universities particularly.

“While the government and ASUU were unable to reach an agreement regarding which of the two payment platforms to be adopted for management of university staff payroll.

“Recent allegations of bribery, corruption and delayed capturing and payment of some university staff recruited as far back as in 2020 through the IPPIS has called for urgent investigation of those irregularities,” Ubah said.

He said that this was because of untold hardship caused to affected university staff and their families.

“Some of the affected staff cutting across many universities have been alleged to bribe IPPIS officials for the purpose of getting captured on the platform.”

In his remarks, President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, said: “When the final report of the investigation comes, we will be very glad to look at them.

“This is because the issues are very germane; they touch on the lives of the future generation.

“When we don’t put the educational system right, it means we will be increasing insecurity in the future because of the kind of products that will come out from the various universities.

“When the teachers are not happy, their output will also be limited and this will impede the growth of education in the country,” said Akpabio. (NAN)

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