SSANU Laments Impoverishment of Members by IPPIS
By Lucky Isibor.
The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, yesterday lamented that the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) has further impoverished it members in the university system
Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim, National President of SSANU who made this assertion in Benin, Friday, at the 2nd Regular Zonal Executive Council meeting of SSANU, South-South, noted that what Nigerian leaders told their members as regards the IPPIS is quite different from what is being experienced presently.
According to him, due to the implementation of IPPIS, several allowances his members are entitled to are being denied, adding that they can no longer access the money they save through their multi-purpose co-operative.
He said the IPPIS which has denied Vice-Chancellors of universities to employ even a single staff has made the so-called university autonomy questionable, stressing that with the introduction of IPPIS, universities are no more autonomous.
"No Vice-Chancellor can employ a single staff today in our universities. If VC can no longer employ a single staff, then where is the university autonomy?
"For us as a union, our highest predicament presently is the continuous denials of our member's privileges and rights by the Federal Government of Nigeria. We signed an agreement with the Federal Government in 2009, going to 11 years now, less than 10% of that agreement has been implemented.
"Our allowances are being taken for granted. The contribution we make through our multi-purpose corporative, the money is not accessible. This gives us doubt about the anti-corruption fight professed by this government. And the worst, this money is not remitted.
"Our members are seriously suffering financially and economically because of the mutilation we are witnessing in our salaries. When we key into IPPIS, it was with a clear vision. Our leaders then told us that this is an opportunity where university staff will have it easy accessing their salaries, but what we are seeing today is contrary,"he lamented.
Speaking on insecurity bedeviling the nation, Comrade Ibrahim said the university community is no longer safe for its members, just as he lamented that many of the universities staff have fall victim to kidnapping or armed robbery.
He recommended that government should empower universities security staff with licensed arms and ammunition and also retrain them so that they can stand the insecurity challenges in the university community.
"The university environment is no longer safe. So many of our members have fallen victim of either kidnapping or armed robbery, to other dared devil criminal activities, thereby making life so difficult, and that is why we have been advocating that government should license our security personnel in the universities and the university management should be empowered to train these staff so they can carry arms and protect the university community.
"We have been pushing this. You can only work when you are secured. You can only work when you are alive. And because of the strategic role we play in the university community, we cannot continue to suffer at the hands of these criminals. And we are urging the government to ensure that protection is given to the university community," he said.
Speaking at the event, Vice-Chancellor, University of Benin, the host of the South-South meeting, Professor Lillian Salami, urged SSANU members and other staff of the university to cooperate with the management by offering selfless and sacrificial service and not to see the university system as a national cake.
She said, "We must look beyond personal gains to enable us sacrificially do what needs to be done for the good of all. This is where we earn our daily bread and we must be committed to the sustenance of the institution rather than seeing it as a place of the national cake."
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin, Prof. Liliana Salami was conferred with an award by SSANU which was presented to her by its president, Mohammed Ibrahim.
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