TheCable earlier reported that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) “mobilized for a nationwide strike” over the federal government’s refusal to negotiate its enrolment on the compulsory payment scheme.
According to ThisDay, Ben Bem Goong, a spokesperson of the ministry of education, said ASUU’s opposition to the scheme was due to the financial irregularities and corruption being perpetrated in the system which IPPIS would expose.
While accusing government-owned institutions of manipulating their costs, Ben added that there’s no basis for anyone to resist payment through IPPIS if such a stance is not targeted at “hiding something.”
“There’s no basis for anyone to resist payment through IPPIS. Even on the issue of double appointments in different institutions, which will be discovered by the scheme, the ministry of finance promised to take care of all that. Going on strike is unnecessary,” he said.
“If tomorrow technology evolves in such a way that we will have to move from IPPIS to a more refined system of payment, the government will do that. But ASUU is saying the nation has reached the final bus stop and so the system of payment should not be refined.
“FG says ‘let’s pay everyone from the centre,’ and ASUU is jittery. That means there is something that is fishy. What is it they are doing that they don’t want to be on IPPIS, which will solve many things? ASUU has no issue at all. You don’t tell your paymaster how to be paid, but you can negotiate with your paymaster how much he will pay you.
“They claim it will disparage their autonomy, but they have never been specific to which part of the autonomy. If you know, tell me. There is something some persons are trying to hide. When you send the bulk cost to some institutions, they manipulate it, and people are not talking about that. It is what ASUU is trying to hide.
“ASUU wants to draw the nation back to the 1960s when salaries were paid by hand and pay envelopes. Wait and see, at the end of this enrollment, the government will expose some level of atrocities being committed in some of these institutions. ASUU should accept it in good fate and they should also be happy.”
Skytrendnews
