UG3PS vs IPPIS:
-UNIUYO SSANU boss says the Union develops the new payment platform to meet the peculiarities its staff members.
The Chairperson, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, University of Uyo Branch SSANU-UUB, Mrs. Anietie Atai has affirmed that SSANU has developed a new payment platform called University General and Peculiar Payroll and Personnel System, UG3PS.
The SSANU-UUB boss revealed that contrary to the Federal Government’s IPPIS, the UG3PS would be structured to take care of the peculiarities of the staff members which has been ignored by the Federal Government’s payment platform.
The development came after ASUU had developed a payment platform for all staff across the Nigerian Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, called UTAS, earlier this year.
NASU, University of Uyo branch, according to its chairman, had embraced the platform.
But in an interview with our reporter, Mrs. Atai maintained that SSANU rejected both the UTAS and IPPIS based on the uncertainty surrounding the extent to which they can cater for the peculiarities of her staff.
“We are not against UTAS but our fear is that, will UTAS capture our peculiarities? So to be on a safer side we decided to develop our payment platform too, which is UG3PS,” she disclosed.
The SSANU-UUB boss said what inspired her to propose the payment platform to SSANU at the national was insincerity on the part of the Federal Government to capture the peculiarities of their staff members on IPPIS as they promised.
According to her: “When our union had meeting with the Federal Government on the issue of IPPIS, they promised that peculiarities will be captured. The union asked our members to enrol but only to discover that when they started payment from that platform on February, there are anomalies, irregularities and deduction in salary of staff and total omissions.
“Immediately we realised these, we informed them on the recent development, instead of them to see how they can strengthen the platform, they said those things we used to benefit were never our entitlements, claiming that such peculiarities are not recognised by the Salary and Wages Commission and that the platform has come to streamline it. So, to address our peculiarities we have developed our own platform, called UG3PS.”
While describing the attitude of the government towards earned allowance that formed part of the content of the agreement, Mrs. Atai noted that the government is becoming insincere in executing their part of the agreement.
“I call this insincerity because Federal Government is claiming that the documents containing the 2009 agreement was not circularised by the Salary and Wages Commission, because when we go for negotiations, Salaries and Wages Commission usually has a representative, the same with office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Federal Ministry of Education and Nigerian Universities Commission.
“On such note, why is the government telling the union that the documents that were signed by these parties was not circularized that until the documents are circularized before we can get our entitlements. Federal Government has not shown maturity in keeping to the agreement we had since 2009”, she reiterated.
Consequently, the SSANU-UUB Chairperson of the union stressed that re-negotiation of the agreement was supposed to be every four years, adding that the Federal Government has never respected the terms and conditions for renegotiation from 2009 until last year that the government came up with the idea of constituting a negotiation panel.
“Just yesterday our national leaders had meeting with the Federal, so in that meeting they promised them that they are going to set up panel for renegotiations. So, from 2009 till date we have not engaged on any negotiation with the government and this terrible,” she stated.
