The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) has presented an alternative payroll system for its members to the leadership of the Senate.
The alternative system called University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) has been recommended by the union to replace the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) being used for federal government workers.
The chairman of the union, Biodun Ogunyemi, made this known to journalists after a closed-door meeting with the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.
He said the UTAS should be used by the federal government to effect transparency and accountability in the process of payments of lecturers’ emoluments.
“What we have started is to open the issues, we will still meet again to continue from where we stopped.
“We have developed what we call University Transparency and Accountability Solution. We have presented it to the Senate today and the Senate President commended it.
“We have shown that we are inventors, we are creators of software and we are also capable of doing what our colleagues are doing in other parts of the world.”
However, the presentation of UTAS is contrary to what President Muhammadu Buhari said in his 2021 budget speech. Buhari said only federal workers captured on IPPIS will be paid.
The government has also written university managements to prepare to stop lecturers salaries from November if they do not call off their strike and enrol on IPPIS.
On Monday, Mr Ogunyemi said the visit was a follow up to the meeting between ASUU and the Senate in 2019 to find a way out of the IPPIS crisis.
The union had agreed to develop UTAS for testing and adoption for managing personnel information and payroll system in the universities.
