The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), says only workers captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System platform will be paid salaries.

He said this during the presentation of the proposed 2021 Budget of N13 trillion to the National Assembly on Thursday.

Before presenting the proposed budget, Buhari gave a breakdown of the performance of the 2020 budget.

He explained that the decision not to pay federal workers not captured on the IPPIS was to reduce personnel cost.

This is coming amidst the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities over IPPIS and other matters.

He said, “Personnel cost is still our largest single item of expenditure. In the 7 months to 31st July 2020, it accounted for 34 percent of total Federal Government spending and is projected at 33 percent of 2021 expenditure.

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“To check the incidence of payments to non-existent personnel and unauthorised allowances, only Federal staff that have been captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (‘IPPIS’) platform will receive salaries.

“All agencies have been directed to ensure that they obtain all necessary approvals before embarking on any fresh recruitment. Any breach of these directives will be severely sanctioned.”

ASUU had rejected IPPIS, insisting that it violates university autonomy and proposed the UTAS as an alternative.

Instead, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution was developed as an alternative to IPPIS by the varsity lecturers.

President of the union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, earlier explained that there was nowhere in the world where IPPIS is being implemented that universities are put under the civil service.

He said if Nigeria wanted to have 21st-century universities, with global ranking, it cannot be achieved through IPPIS.

“This is because IPPIS will shut the door against scholars who are to come from outside Nigeria, scholars who are not on the pensionable appointment within the system.

“IPPIS will bring universities under direct civil service control and the system does not work that way.

“That kind of system will kill innovation, will kill creativity and it will kill academic freedom and autonomy.”