The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said the arrest of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has proven its notion that IPPIS is a fraud.
The union made this known while reacting to Idris’s arrest over alleged money laundering and diversion of N80 billion, adding that the Federal Government should discard the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) being used for the payment of federal workers’ salaries.
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, speaking with newsmen on Wednesday, warned that the case should not be covered up, stating that IPPIS is just a fraud used by the Accountant-General to siphon funds and not control corruption.
“We have said it over and over again that IPPIS is a fraud. We’ve also said that the Accountant-General office is a fraud, and they are using IPPIS to relocate all the fraud activities to one center, which is the Accountant-General Office, and we have been vindicated. That’s our position,” he said.
“This IPPIS, I can tell you as we speak, that many of our members have not been paid for 13 months, 8 months, 9 months but they are telling the government that they are using it to control corruption.”
The Union demanded that EFCC should take the Accountant-General to court and pursue his case to a logical conclusion, adding that “corrupt persons deserve punishment in line with President Buhari administration’s vision”.
Meanwhile, The Centre for Media, Policy and Accountability (CMPA) on Wednesday, called for Idris’ speedy prosecution.
CMPA, in a statement by its Director of Communications, Outreach, and Advocacy, Ibrahim Uba Yusuf, said: “It’s important to note that the arrest of the AGF attests to the series of complaints and whistleblowing that the office which controls the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) has not only centralized but become the culvert of corruption.”
