FG Must Incorporate UTAS into IPPIS to Avert Future Strike, Says VC

James Sowole in Abeikuta

Proffering suggestions on how to avoid another strike by university lecturers in the future, the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Prof. Ganiu Olatunde, has advised the federal government to incorporate some of the features of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) into the existing Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform of the government.

Olatunde insisted that the only way to peacefully resolve the lingering crisis between the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) and the federal government over the preferable platform for payment of lecturers’ salaries was for the government to merge UTAS and IPPIS together.

The VC made the call during a chat with journalists in his office to mark the end of his five-year tenure in the university

ASUU had rejected IPPIS, a payment platform created by the federal government to pay its workers and insisted on UTAS as its preferred payment option.

Expressing concern on the effects of the incessant strike, Olatunde lamented that the action was a setback, to the country, hoping that ways to avoid using strike to resolve issues without industrial action would emerge.

He said, “Must we have IPPIS? Why can’t we look at those things in UTAS and put them in the IPPIS such that it can give a faultless platform?

“Those things that are peculiar to UTAS input them in IPPIS to improve it and that is the thing we are now coming back to.

“If the government had ceded IPPIS, the non-academic unions will say the federal government must accept their own too, others will want to bring their own too, so the FG will never agree. The federal government will never agree because it will drag them in the mud because they will say our own is superior.

“But, rather than change or allow your own (IPPIS) to come in, let us make those things in the our own (UTAS) and put them in the IPPIS, so that another group will not stand up and say accept our own too and that is where we are heading to now.

“The ASUU has agreed that the components of those best things in UTAS should be incorporated in the IPPIS.”

Highlighting some of his achievements, Olatunde said tackling insecurity issues was one of the major achievements of his five-year tenure.

The VC said all the principal officers cooperated with him when he assumed the office, adding that the school recruited more security personnel just as CCTV cameras, were installed to monitor, activities on the campus.

He also expressed delight that the OOU was not denied accreditation for any of its programmes.

“After security, we ensured that we have good environment and make the school to be attractive to students. We don’t have any denied programme in our school because all our programmes are fully accredited.

“We source for fund from our Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) to pay the staff’s salaries as at when due; even during COVID-19 and ASUU strike. We have high level of financial saving to cater for our needs. And we never owed a single month salary in my five year- tenure.”