By Hanan Najeeb Abdusslam

The non-academic staff union of universities, NASU, said that workers in the country are poor because they don’t earn minimum wage.

NASU’s General Secretary, Comrade Peter Adeyemi, made this known in a published interview with the Nation Newspaper.

He said: “So, when you bastardised your currency, you reduced the benefits. What was the exchange rate when the government took over from Jonathan. It was not up to N200 to a dollar, but today, it is above N750. Nothing seems to be working.

“Take, for instance, privatisation in the power sector. It has also failed. They used our money to rehabilitate it. And we see this as a deliberate step to steal public assets by those in public office. And, today, there is no adequate power supply. The bills keep rising and we are paying for darkness.

“So, it is a deliberate stealing of public assets by those in public office, and that is why I laughed when the government said it is fighting corruption.

“President Tinubu must work with us and should not see labour as enemies or antagonists. He shouldn’t mind any issue he has with the Labour Party. Labour Party is on its own.

“ The Nigeria Labour movement is on its own. Even though the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) adopted the Labour Party, he should not get discouraged. Don’t forget that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees freedom of association.

“So, if the Labour Party is adopted, it does not translate that every worker must belong to the party. That is the pronouncement of the NLC and TUC, so be it.”

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TECHDIGEST – The rejection of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as a payment platform for university workers took another dimension on Tuesday as the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) presented its preferred payment platform to the minister of education, Adamu Adamu.

Tagged “University Peculiar Payroll and Payment System (U3PS),” JAC, comprising the representatives of SSANU and NASU, said IPPIS has been found to be inconsistent with the peculiarities of the university system.

Speaking at the meeting on Tuesday, the permanent secretary at the ministry of education, Andrew Adejo, said the ministry of labour and employment had, at a meeting in October, 2020, agreed to the presentation of JAC’s preferred payment system.

“About some time last month, we got a letter from the (ministry of) labour forwarding it to us (the ministry of education) to take the necessary action. So we met last week and computed it and this is the formal presentation,” Mr Adejo said.

U3PS

Presenting the U3PS, the general Secretary of NASU, Peters Adeyemi, said it grants the universities the autonomy of preparing their payroll that is consistent with the peculiarities of the system.

He said the union had keyed into the IPPIS for the first few months before it was prompted to create U3PS due to the inconsistencies involved in the IPPIS.

He said: “Since the government said IPPIS was going to be used to fight corruption, we should join hands with the government to give IPPIS a trial and we went into IPPIS.

“But from the first month to second, third and fourth month or thereabout, it was full of inconsistencies. Avalanche of inconsistencies. So much that our members could no longer bear it and they were on our nerves.

“And we look within and among us and we realised that we have technical and ICT experts that can help us to develop an alternative to IPPIS which we called the University Peculiar Payroll and Payment System (U3PS) where we believe that all the inconsistencies in the IPPIS will be resolved.”

Mr Adeyemi added that the U3PS was developed “in such a way that will accommodate all the stakeholders in the university system; be it academics, non teaching staff, or academic technologists.”

Minister speaks

Speaking, the minister of education said he was impressed with the platform and wondered why the unions did not develop it before the introduction of IPPIS.

Mr Adamu urged the unions to document the inconsistencies involved with the IPPIS to help bring to the government’s attention.

He said: “I would like to congratulate you for this thing that you have done. I congratulate Nigerian intellectuals who could do this, because I believe IPPIS is being paid large amounts of money to experts who are foreigners.

“So, we have experts in our higher institutions who could do this. I don’t even know why they never did it before.

“I would like to call on you. The inconsistencies that you say we have in the IPPIS which are many, please articulate them, because there is a need for us to know how things went wrong.

“I am sure when IPPIS started, it was working very well. But now everybody is complaining including those who are running it”.

The minister also directed the union to make the same presentation to the minister of finance and the accountant general of the federation “so that it can be subjected to tests by NITDA.”

“I hope you are up to the task and you can defend yourself. But I believe NITDA will be waiting for you,” he said.

NITDA absent

Meanwhile, the representatives of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) were absent at Tuesday’s meeting.

NITDA is the government agency saddled with the responsibility of “creating a framework for the planning, research, development, standardisation, application, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and regulation of information technology practices in Nigeria.”

It is expected to subject the new application to rigorous tests before it could be approved for deployment.

During the meeting, the permanent secretary at the education ministry said an invite was sent to NITDA, but he didn’t know why its representatives were absent.

However, Hadiza Umar, NITDA’S head of corporate affairs and external relations told PREMIUM TIMES that she was unaware of the invitation. She promised to make enquiries and provide a reply. But she was yet to provide a response as of the time of filing this report.

Source : Premium Times

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