From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
The Vice Chancellor of Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Prof Abayomi Fasina, has said President Bola Tinubu’s exemption of public universities in the country from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) was a step in the right direction.
The VC who said the removal from IPPIS was a welcome development, commended the President for taking the decision noting that the exit from the payment platform will allow for a new and effective university system.
Fasina made the remarks at the weekend while receiving Award of Excellence from Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Ekiti State Council, in recognition of his exemplary performance in the institution.
The don said the move was a big relief to the system as the intellectual ivory towers now have autonomy and by this they will be able them to manage the system efficiently on their own.
He lamented that the introduction of IPPIS contributed to the problems faced by universities in the country because it denied them their autonomy as well as failed to accommodate the peculiarities of the university administration.
He noted the removal would help to ease administrative burden faced by public universities and other tertiary institutions as well as remove the bureaucratic bottlenecks caused by the payment platform in the area of recruitments and promotion of staff.
The VC said the President’s decision was not unconnected to the renewed hope agenda of his administration and his commitment to ensure a better education sector.
On the advantages of the removal from IPPIS, Fasina said : “The advantage is that we are now independent to decide on proper management of the system. We can always take from our IGR to supplement what we are given by the government.
“Another advantage is that we want the government to increase our salary and with this development, we can subsidise such increment with our IGR. We are currently poorly paid as lecturers in Nigerian universities. For example, a professor should not earn less than a million naira.
“This development will save us a lot of troubles of running to Abuja to get approval for so many things we can easily handle on our own. Such things as recruitment and others. We are having the autonomy now and we would manage our system efficiently on our own.
“There is so much bureaucracy in IPPIS which gave us so much headache. We have some of our staff members who haven’t collected their salary for many months now because of that bureaucracy. We have a situation where a former VC who went on sabbatical was denied his salaries on return for several months due to the bottlenecks of IPPIS.”