Polytechnic lecturers in the country have attributed their inability to fight against enrollment in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS),like their university counterparts to the existing law which they explained, didn’t grant them autonomy like the universities’.
The explanation came as the polytechnic lecturers under the auspices of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), said they have fully enrolled in the controversial payment scheme introduced by the Federal Government.
But the union which explained that the lack of autonomy in the Polytechnics Amendment Act, did not grant polytechnics autonomy unlike universities, accused the Federal Government of deviating from the terms specified in the IPPIS modules they were made to enroll.
Addressing the media, yesterday, in Abuja, ASUP executive, led by its President, Anderson Ezeibe, explained that the lack of autonomy tied their hands, as they lacked the power in determining how their employers should pay them.
“In federal polytechnics, we had directed all our members to enroll and from our record, there is no polytechnic that has not enrolled. In November, last year, after we accepted the sector’s specific template that was presented to us, we directed our members from all federal polytechnics to present themselves for enrollment and we are aware that they have all complied.
“Apart from those who are probably foreign scholars, that is scholars outside the country or those who had medical issues of which we age asked for a mop-up exercise to enable them get on board. So, we can confidently tell you that all federal polytechnics are on the platform,” he said.
But the union which called on the government to organise mop-up exercises to capture those who missed out in the enrollment, warned the government against tagging those classes of people as ghost workers, as according to him, while some were on funded scholarship studies abroad, some missed out on health grounds.
Explaining why he directed members to participate in the IPPIS scheme without hesitation, Ezeibe said: “The truth of the matter is that every union has its own modus operandi. I can also tell you that the law establishing the universities is very different from the law establishing the polytechnics.”
He spoke further: “Apart from the issue of peculiarities, you can also look at the issue of legality which we understand our colleagues in the universities are talking about through the issue of university autonomy. We don’t have that measure in the polytechnics.
“We also feel that from our own stand point as workers, we can only protect our emolument but we can actually not go the distance of determining for our employers how our salaries should be paid.
“They said whichever way they want to pay our salaries, they will make sure that our peculiarities, our emoluments are secured and that was why they brought what they called the Sector Specific Template which they demonstrated to us to capture our retirement age which is very different from what is obtained in the civil service.
“They also saw that they captured the mobility in the sector, for instance, sabbatical appointments, capture our earned allowances and such other peculiarities.
“When we viewed it, we felt that we can give it a trial and see how it goes but of course, with a caveat that if there is any deviation from what has been demonstrated to us and submitted to us both in hand and soft copy, that our members will not hesitate to react to it appropriately.”
Ezeibe, who said some members missed out either on foreign studies or health issues, warned against classifying them as ghost workers, saying to avoid the tag, his organisation had requested for a mop-up exercise in polytechnics affected.