SSANU decries lopsided implementation of IPPIS, non-payment of minimum wage
The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has decried what it called shoddy and lopsided implementation of some core components of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Mr Mohammed Ibrahim, SSANU National President, said this in a communique issued at the end of a three-day National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and Leadership training of union members.
Ibrahim said the NEC in session copiously deliberated on various challenging issues of the union at both Branch and National levels.
”NEC in session observed with dismay the shoddy and lopsided implementation of some core components of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
”Specifically, hazard and other earned allowances that are yet to be fully implemented in the monthly salaries of our members as earlier agreed.
”Granted that implementation of the allowances has commenced, it is rather surprising that they are scandalously captured.
”Government is, therefore, earnestly urged to stabilise the mode of salary payment vide IPPIS and immediately commence the payment of hazard, responsibility, excess workload, overtime and others, alongside monthly salaries without further delay,” he said.
He also said that NEC noted with great concern, the reluctance of the federal and some state governments to implement the new national minimum wage and its accumulated arrears.
Accordingly, Ibrahim said, NEC urges the Federal Government to pay the arrears of the new minimum wage as previously agreed in the Memorandum of Agreement, especially its loss of value due to the high inflation currently experienced in the country.
On the issue of re-negotiating the 2009 FGN/SSANU agreement, Ibrahim said NEC was briefed and that the exercise would soon commence, after it was halted last year as a result of COVID-19.
He added that the Government’s committee on the issue was expecting a date from the SSANU/NASU delegation, and that a date to kick start the re-negotiation exercise would soon be communicated to government after all logistics had been put in place.
”NEC urges government to show sincere commitment to the course of the exercise when it eventually takes off, bearing in mind that the same agreement was entered into over a decade ago and ought to have been re-negotiated twice,” he said.
The SSANU president further said NEC in session condemned in strong terms, the absurd and unabated increase in insecurity across the country.
”Especially, the incessant abductions and demand for ransom and killings of students and staff of secondary and tertiary institutions by bandits, especially in the Northern part of the country.
”The recent invasion of the Nigerian Defence Academy Kaduna was a national embarrassment and disgrace, indicating a total collapse of the security architecture of the country.
”NEC, therefore, calls on the Federal Government to urgently stem this ugly tide by vigorously strengthening the security agencies to ensure effective tackling of this monstrous menace.
”NEC also calls on the Federal Government to take urgent steps in ensuring that our highways are motorable, in order to reduce the hardship and risks to the teeming citizens who ply these roads,” he said.
The president also said that NEC seriously condemns the attitude of Government’s serial reneging on agreements with trade unions, stressing that government should ”cultivate the habit of honouring agreements it willingly signed with labour unions, to avoid these incessant strikes”. (NAN)
