Minister-of-Finance-Zainab-Ahmed

The Federal Government has insisted on migration of payment of salaries of lecturers teaching at federal universities to the Integrated Payroll Personal System, IPPIS, despite the threat by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to embark on strike over the issue.

Speaking to reporters at the end of the meeting of National Economic Council on Tuesday, the Minister of Finance, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, said the decision to migrate payment of salaries of lecturers to IPPIS platform was  a presidential  directive binding on all Federal Government’s staff.

According to her,  President Muhammadu  Buhari has directed that every staff of government’s agencies must be on IPPIS.

She said that her job was to comply with the president’s directive.

“So, that is what I do and we are going to do that. It is a pity if ASUU carries out this strike because what ASUU is saying now is that they should be treated differently from other staff of the government of Nigeria who are also on IPPIS.

“We will be engaging ASUU; we will be discussing with them; but at the end of the day, as far as I am concerned, my instruction is from the president.’’

ASUU had insisted that migrating payment of salaries of lecturers to the IPPIS, a central platform for management of salaries of workers of the federal will be a negation of the constititionally guaranteed autonomy of the universities.

The Union had therefore vowed to call its members out on strike if the Federal Government continues with the implementation of the directive issued by the President during the presentation of the 2020 budget proposal to the National Assembly.