The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Lagos, on Monday rejected the forceful enrolment of its members on the Federal Government Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Mr Nureni Yekini, ASUP Chairman in the college, made the decision of his members known at a news conference in the college, following the directive of the national body.
Yekini said that the national body of the union had on July 25 held an emergency meeting in Abuja over the invasion and forceful enrollment of its members in the college.
Yekini quoted as insisting that before union would be enrolled on the platform, IPPIS must change the present template, and as well produce a written document to reflect it.
According to him, a government policy must not be put in place to further impoverish or suffer the people, saying that the union rejected the policy in its entirety.
“The Federal Government is bringing all sorts of innovations here and there, but we are academics.
“We are not against innovation being brought by President Muhammadu Buhari, but as regard IPPIS, there are peculiarities that need to be addressed.
“We have been on this issue since 2016. We had discussions with IPPIS in 2017 and 2018 and they were just telling us orally that they will address the peculiarities.
“Unfortunately on July 22, officials of IPPIS invaded our campus in Yabatech. They were also at Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun, and Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun on July 17 and 18, to forcefully enroll members.
“If they enroll us, they are going to be a lot of problems and difficulties for our members.
“How much are we collecting right now that the government wants to enroll us on IPPIS, and all this money will go down,” he said.
Yekini listed issues that must be addressed before the union could be enrolled on the platform to include: peculiar allowance, 65 years retirement age, sabbatical leave allowance, implementation promotion and recognition of adjunct staff.
According to him, we have listed a lot of issues they must address, which include: peculiar allowance, retirement age of academic staff to spend 65 years, irrespective of when you join the work.
“But with the platform, they are using in IPPIS, they want to use the normal federal civil service platform, that is either 35 years in service or 60 years of age.
“The template used by IPPIS will affect our members if they enroll into the system.
“They also want the issue of sabbatical leave, which is the birth right of the academic staff, to be removed.
“If you enroll in IPPIS now, by the time you go on sabbatical leave in another Federal Government establishment, you are in trouble, because the system will not pay your salary twice.
“So, it means that they want to remove that birth right from us,” he said.
