ASUU: We Will Continue With Strike Until Our Demands Are Met – No School Resumption
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced that University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) is now ready for integrity test as earlier requested by the federal government, insisting that their strike action will go on until their demands are met.
Recall that UTAS which was developed by ASUU as an alternative to the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), which the Union rejected has been previously agreed by the two parties to be integrated.
Addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday, the president of ASUU,
Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, maintained that UTAS still remained more than just an alternative to IPPIS which does not respect the nature, structure and character of the Nigerian University System.
According to him, “We had always promised that ASUU would produce a robust software solution that would be sensitive to the uniqueness of the university system in addressing personnel information and payroll system, among other things.
“Following our engagements with the Federal Government over the issues that eventually led to the declaration of the ongoing strike action on 17th March, 2020, government declared that it accepts in principle the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), which is being developed by ASUU and its researchers for the financial administration of the University’s FG’s staff monthly payroll and accounting processes”.
“In addition, the Federal Government pledged that When fully developed UTAS will be subjected to various integrity tests in order to verify its efficacy to see whether this final product will pass the necessary technical attribute test as specified by NITDA.” On our part, ASUU had given a time-frame of eighteen (18) months to government to develop, test and deploy UTAS
In keeping with this promise, ASUU is pleased to announce that UTAS is now ready for the ‘integrity tests’ required of it by government.
Indeed, the software was unveiled by way of demonstration to the Minister and Senior Management Staff of the Ministry of Education, including the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), yesterday, 17th August, 2020.
We must however emphasise that UTAS is far more than just an alternative to IPPIS which does not respect the nature, structure and character of the Nigerian University System.
“It was ill-advised, ab initio, to have deployed IPPIS in the universities. All the distortions and disruptions being reported within the university payrolls of federal universities in the last six months or so, even by those who initially welcomed IPPIS with open arms, were predicted by ASUU. Unlike IPPIS, however, the UTAS is a web-based.