The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has come hard on the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, for criticising it over its position on the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System, IPPIS.
ASUU called on him to deal with corruption issues in his office rather than describing the union as endorsing corruption.
The Chairman, University of Ibadan Chapter, Prof.Deji Omole, while addressing the congress of the union, also said corruption and corrupt practices had become more dreadful under the Muhammadu Buhari administration as those implementing government policies extorted and profited from them.
He also lashed out at the AGF for describing the opposition of the union against IPPIS being planned by the Federal Government as an endorsement of corruption.
Omole who berated the AGF for criticising the union, challenged him to name the specific ministries where the IPPIS had saved the Federal Government and how many persons had been prosecuted to show the government was serious about fighting corruption, noting that the union would never support corrupt practices but will not allow the Federal Government to extort her members and make them vulnerable to corruption.
He stated that the introduction of Treasury Single Account, TSA, into the university system had crippled operations as many departments could not buy a rim of paper due to paucity of funds.
He added that despite signing different Memorandum of Action with the union in 2017 and 2019 to create separate interest yielding accounts for university endowment funds, grants and other funds, nothing had been done to that effect thereby making universities vulnerable.
He said, “Autonomy of the University is a legal issue and the federal government will not be allowed to trample upon it. The issues here is very clear as the forceful movement of university workers is an act of illegality and ASUU as a responsible union will not fold its arms and allow the law to broken by a mere pronouncement.”
