INTRODUCTION

The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) is a concept of the World Bank designed to eliminate waste in personnel cost of Government employees. In 2007, the Federal Government of Nigeria adopted IPPIS and this entailed the centralisation of the payroll system that would be used to pay salaries/wages of all Federal Government workers across the country. To facilitate this, a Directorate was created in the office of the Accountant General of the Federation to handle all IPPIS and IPPIS related cases.

In 2013, the Federal Government informed all Federal universities of its desire to enrol all federal workers on the IPPIS platform. Immediately the four in-house Unions got wind of this development, they swung into action and registered their objection to the new salary system. They vowed to have nothing to do with IPPIS because it contradicted the University system. In its response, Government invited the Unions to send representatives each to constitute a tripartite committee (Unions, Government and IPPIS) to discuss and identify the areas considered peculiar to the Universities (SSANU was represented by Comrade I.A. Bello). Among the peculiar areas identified by the Unions were: Sabbatical leave, visiting lecturing, taxation, remittance of Union dues, third party payments (e.g. Cooperatives, responsibility allowance and other allowances under Earned Allowance). It is pertinent to mention here that very little success was recorded by the Committee as Government remained rigid on its plans to implement the policy. Although, the Committee later reached agreement on sabbatical leave, visiting lecturing and a few others, it could not agree on taxation (PAYE), and payment of Earned Allowances along with salaries. The discussion dragged on through 2014 and to 2015 when a new government took over. The talks went into limbo until 2019 when suddenly, the Federal Government rekindled its determination to capture the entire work force in all tertiary institutions on the IPPIS platform. Government adopted the strategy of dealing with the presidents of the in-house Unions in Federal Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education and succeeded in brain-washing the leaders on the so-called benefits of IPPIS and the need to key in immediately. Government promised that it would implement all the identified peculiarities as they affect the University system.
Some Key Areas and How IPPIS Affects Them

a) IPPIS and Employee Net pay

The Financial Regulations of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recommends that employees’ net pay should not be less than two-thirds (2/3) of his Gross pay. For instance, if one’s gross pay is Ninety Thousand Naira (N90,000.00), two-thirds (2/3) of N90,000 is N60,000.00. In other words, all deductions must not exceed N30,000.00. Deductions that would bring the net pay below N60,000.00 would be added back to the net pay to maintain the two-thirds (N60,000.00) statutory net pay.

However, IPPIS was to ensure that all statutory deductions such as Pension Contribution, PAYE, National Housing Fund (NHF) were effected unfailingly. It is only the statutory deductions that IPPIS may allow to bring the net pay below 2/3 of the gross, but as a matter of fact, this would hardly happen. Employees are therefore saddled with the responsibility of going to pay all the third party payments that may bring the net pay below 2/3 of the gross. Such third party payments include loans, Cooperative deductions, check off dues, etc. In fact the implementation of IPPIS in some institutions has already emasculated some welfare programmes put in place by groups and Unions, e.g. in the Centre for Energy Research and Training, of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the check off dues deduction for all the Unions in the Centre ceased since 2013 when government commenced implementation of IPPIS. Cooperatives found it difficult to recover loans and contributions from beneficiaries, because when such deductions are effected, the statutory net pay would be violated.

b) IPPIS and Pay As You Earn (PAYE)

IPPIS would implement in full, Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) 2014 as amended. Pay-As-You-Earn would be implemented in full and IPPIS will never accept any tax regime outside Pay-As-You-Earn. PAYE is a progressive and statutory form of tax that says if you earn “A” pay “B”, i.e. Pay As You Earn. During the negotiation on the implementation of IPPIS, the government officials misled leaders of the Unions into believing that Universities could negotiate with the respective state governments where they were domicile. Government knew fully well that no state government would accept such negotiation as all states firmly believe that tax is a statutory matter that is non-negotiable. For instance, the Kaduna State Board of Internal Revenue had sued Ahmadu Bello University to Court over perceived under payment of PAYE over the years to the tune of over six billion naira (N6b). IPPIS succeeded in brainwashing our leaders by telling them that if Universities could reach agreement with the respective state governments on negotiated amount to pay as PAYE, IPPIS would not hesitate to implement. The truth remains that no state government would agree to such negotiation especially now that state governments are aggressively looking for funds to enhance their IGR to implement the minimum wage. This means staff in Federal Universities would have to contend with the tax burden IPPIS has brought upon them.

c) IPPIS and Job Cuts

IPPIS is poised to take the better part of payroll work from the Universities and host it in its custody and management. The only payroll work the Universities (Bursary) will be doing is probably salary variations and this will only last shortly. The danger associated with this is that where and when two institutions are handling payroll, there is high probability of errors of under or over payments, mistakes, omissions, etc. In order to avoid such problems IPPIS would take over the entire management of the payroll in the long run. At that stage, the personnel budget and everything about the University personnel management would be taken over by IPPIS. The system (IPPIS) would engage more hands to handle its expanded responsibilities and redundancy would begin to set in on the part of university staff handling the payroll. It is very obvious for the government to contemplate job-cuts in the long run when IPPIS has perfected its pay rolling system.

d) IPPIS and Negotiated Allowances

All allowances that are not consolidated on CONTISS II will not be recognised by IPPIS. Such allowances would be considered as informal and by extension, non-binding. It would be recalled that all efforts by the Union (SSANU) to convince the Federal Government to implement Earned Allowances along with monthly salaries have proved abortive. Wherever such allowances have been implemented probably to sustain industrial peace, would be cleaned up. This is one of the major reasons why Federal Government is hell bent on implementing IPPIS in University system.

A staff in ABU, Zaria for instance who is on CONTISS 9/3 will have the same gross pay with his counterparts in University of Lagos, Calabar, Maiduguri, etc. Upon implementation of IPPIS the likelihood of continuous depletion on monthly salaries is conceivable.

e) IPPIS and Strike Action

IPPIS is a control instrument to be used to control the activities of workers besides its main purpose as payment solution. The concept of No-work-No-pay would be implemented with ease under IPPIS. If a staff salary is suspended on grounds of embarking on strike action, the affected staff may have to go to IPPIS office in Abuja for documentations before his/her salary could be restored. IPPIS has already categorised the University staff and created files for them on the basis of staff Union. Any Union whose members embarked on strike would be isolated with ease and handled as IPPIS pleases. A Union can go on strike, but the possibility of getting their pay might be difficult. In the past, it was a bit difficult to withhold salaries of striking staff because Universities were responsible for payment of salaries. Now that the scenario has changed, using IPPIS to cripple strike is a deal already done.

f) IPPIS and Check Off dues

One of the issues IPPIS advanced to convinced SSANU National leaders to join IPPIS was that Union Check off Dues would be deducted and remitted as and when due, and issues of short-fall in salaries would be over/history. SSANU national leaders would be disappointed over issues of check off dues especially when IPPIS becomes fully operational. Where a staff net pay (2/3 of gross) does not meet the minimum requirement, deduction of check off dues from such staff may not be effected. Such staff would be required to withdraw his/her salary and pay cash to his/her Union as check off dues.

It is on authority that ICPC had queried institutions to explain why they had to pay salaries to some staff with a net pay below minimum requirement. ICPC resolved that when the implementation of IPPIS is extended to such institutions the “financial embarrassment” (as they called it) would be over.

Similarly, other third party payments would be handled the same way. These include loans, recovery of salary advance (which may cease as IPPIS does not give such advance), Cooperative deductions, etc. It is evident that a lot of Cooperative groups would fizzle out if they could not make monthly recovery from members who were given loans or effect monthly deductions from members who are subscribing to the Cooperatives.

g) IPPIS and ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had ab-initio registered its protest against the implementation of IPPIS in the Nigerian University system; as a matter of fact, that was the position of the four in house Unions in the Universities. It appears that the leadership of ASUU and by extension its followership have better understanding of the threat of IPPIS to university staff and university system. The ulterior motives of the federal government in insisting on the implementation of IPPIS in the university system is an open secret.

ASUU had gone further to develop a software that is a prototype of IPPIS called University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS). ASUU proposed alternative to IPPIS because they knew the threat of IPPIS to the peculiarities of the University system. ASUU knows the devastating effects the implementation of IPPIS will bring to bear on the staff and university system. What the Federal Government wants is *CONTROL*, and absolute Control. The type of Control government wanted in this regard is synonymous to *SLAVERY*. ASUU knows that when IPPIS is in full implementation the little window available to agitate or protest for one’s rights or demand for a better system would have been completely shut down. If at the end of the day ASUU and its members enrol into IPPIS, they would be deemed victorious because they have succeeded in preparing the minds of their teeming members on the dangers of IPPIS on the welfare and wellbeing of their members and by extension the University system.

h) General View

It is evident that full implementation of IPPS at the University level would affect the non-teaching staff negatively more than gains

If SSANU leaders knew what they were doing, while ASUU was busy canvassing for UTAS, SSANU could have been agitating for something like Corruption Elimination Solution in University System (CESUS) or something similar. The bottom line is the elimination of corruption and cutting to size the over bloated personnel costs in the system. There are very intelligent staff in the ICT section of our respective Universities that could put something doable together. If we had done so, government would have been thinking of how to harmonise UTAS and CESUS thereby jettison IPPIS which is alien to our system and unfriendly to our peculiarities.



*RECOMMENDATIONS*



There are certain errors that once committed, they become very difficult to reverse. The decision of our leaders (NAC/NEC) to accept IPPIS implementation is one of such blunders. It is sheer wishful thinking that we could pull out of IPPIS at the moment. We have boxed ourselves into a corner and government is having the upper hands. We may however try the following options.



i) We should itemise our peculiarities, the ones that were identified earlier and the emerging ones as a result of payment of February and March, 2020 salaries and call the Federal Government to a round table discussion that will lead to a concrete Agreement for immediate implementation.



ii) Appropriate government officials must be involved, e.g. Ministers of Education, Finance and Budget, Labour and Productivity, etc, not only Director of IPPIS and his staff.



Once again, let me reiterate that we have shot ourselves in the leg by conceding to the IPPIS as a weapon of federal government to fight corruption in the university system without knowing, within the context of government, what constitutes corruption. For the avoidance of doubt, our own information, the payment of some earned and peculiar allowances (negotiated) along with the salary, such as hazard, responsibility, high risk, shift duty, medical allowances, etc, in the eyes of government constitute corruption since they are not captioned in our salary table (CONTISS II). It is not only employment of staff or visiting lecturing in more than one university that constitute corruption.



Dear reader, In addition, apart from the fact that the tenure of NAC members has elapsed, if they were to be given the opportunity to negotiate with government, do they have what it takes to convince the government to reverse the havoc done to the salaries of our members through IPPIS? Obviously they cannot.

For instance, while ASUU had met with the Senate President on IPPIS/other demands and had even taken the matter to the number one citizen of the Country (President Muhammadu Buhari), our outgoing/outgone National Leaders were busy celebrating audience granted to them by the Director of IPPIS. They commended him so much for giving them audience amidst his tight schedule. The Director simply told them to ask their branch leaders to negotiate with their respective state government for rebate in terms of Tax (PAYE) and see appropriate Agency/Commission for the allowances. When will these be achieved? Obviously, SSANU has lost out. If anything would be done to mitigate the devastating effect of implementing IPPIS, it will not be in the short run. What IPPIS can do for now is to address the cases of omission, gross underpayment and overpayment as the case may be, etc. We shall have to contend with the ugly scenario.

SSANU Shall Be Free!

Aluta Continua!!

Thank you.

I.A. Bello is the Chairman of SSANU, ABU, Zaria and an aspirant NAC is denying from contesting for SSANU National President.
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