Payroll squabbles continue over names of deceased staff

Nigeria’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) office has accused university administrators of providing a payroll list containing dead staff for salary payment, in reaction to accusations by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that IPPIS paid dead staff and generally cut its members’ salaries by as much as 50%, writes Sanya Adejokun-Abuja for the Nigerian Tribune.

In a statement issued on Monday 18 May by Director of Information, Press and Public Relations Henshaw Oguike, IPPIS said: “On the alleged payment to dead university staff: It means the institutions deliberately forwarded to IPPIS the list containing dead ASUU members as being part of their personnel to get more personnel funds … It is the responsibility of the institutions or agencies to inform the IPPIS office about death, resignation or exit from service before due date. We sent payroll analysis to the tertiary institution bursars for review of any omission or names to be excluded.”

IPPIS noted that prior to migration to IPPIS, institutions were not deducting the correct rates of taxes and other deductions like PAYE, NHF deductions and contributing pension from their staff. “The request by the tertiary institution unions to formalise tax evasion through IPPIS is not only untenable, but [an] unpatriotic request to violate extant laws on tax,” it added.
Full report on the Nigerian Tribune site