The Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Oye Ekiti, (FUOYE) Professor Abayomi Fasina has revealed that the exemption of public universities from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System(IPPIS) would enhance proper management of universities in the country.
Fasina who applauded President Bola Tinubu for the decision, describing it as a right step in the right direction, added that it would allow public universities to have greater autonomy in effectively running their affairs.
Speaking at the weekend while receiving award of excellence from Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalist Ekiti State Council in recognition of his exemplary performance in the institution, the VC Fasina said it was heart-warming to hear that public universities and other tertiary institutions in the country would henceforth manage their payroll and personnel information.
This, he said, would ease administrative burden faced by the universities as well as remove the bureaucratic bottlenecks brought by payroll platforms in the area of recruitment and promotion of staff.
The VC explained that the introduction of IPPIS contributed to the problem faced by universities in the country because it eroded their autonomy as well as failed to accommodate the peculiarities of the university administration.
Fasina said, “The advantage is that we are now independent to decide on proper management of the system. We can always also 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 subsidize 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 trouble 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 have the autonomy now and we can manage our system efficiently on our own.
“There is so much bureaucracy in IPPIS which give 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.”
He said by the singular act, Tinubu has demonstrated his genuine intention and commitment to turn around the fortunes of the education sector, assuring that the exemption would birth a new university system.
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