By Kassim Omomia
Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, which was established to identify and remove Ghost workers and ensure proper accountability of salaries and wages of Federal government workers has been compromised and associated with massive fraud, the House of Representatives has said and subsequently launched a comprehensive investigation
Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives , which made the announcement said it has commenced an enquiry into allegations that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, was enmeshed in massive fraud, gross irregularities that has affected regular salaries and allowances of Federal civil servants so far enrolled in the scheme
According to the committee, it uncovered the anomalies in the IPPIS upon engaging tertiary institutions that had come to defend their audit queries for the year 2018 to 2019
Alarmed by the leakages from, for instance, the J.S. Tarkar University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, Chairman of the Committee, Honorable Oluwole Oke, who announced the infractions also grilled other Chief Executive officers of some schools like the Rector of Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State, Dr. Zubair Mustapha on the expenditure and financial audit reports of the tertiary institution, for the years 2018 and 2019.
Mustapaha told the Committee, that pending salaries for the years under review, were due to anomalies in the IPPIS, introduced since 2015
He said ” the backlog of salaries, is from people, who were not captured by IPPIS”,
Responding, the Chairman, said: That’s why we must look into IPPIS. We were told here, that the salaries of personnel of the University of Agriculture, Makurdi(Benue State), went into accounts of staff of Jigawa State. IPPIS must be investigated, to detect some of the irregularities observed in the system. We have observed some serious irregularities in the system”.
The Committee has concluded plans to write the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmad and the Accountant General of the Federation, to explain alleged sleaze, in the federal staff payment system.
However, arriving at the resolution, the Committe passed a motion to probe IPPIS, from a motion. moved by Honorable Ibrahim Abdullahi, a member representing Dutse/Kiyawa Federal Constituency of Jigawa State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Similarly the committee also summoned the External Auditors of the accounts of Auchi Polytechnic over discrepancies in the audited reports of the school, for 2018-2019.
The Committee,also rejected “audited” accounts for 2018-2019, from the Federal Polytechnic, Illaro, as presented by its Rector, Dr. Olusegun Aluko.
The Rector of the school, who claimed that the institution, generated only N1.91billion in 2019, however failed to give a detailed and technical breakdown of the expenditure of the money and audits of the accounts to boot.
Representatives of the Office of the Auditor of the Federation, at the investigative session, also strongly rejected his presentation before the Committee.
Flowing from that, the Committee placed the Institution on status -enquiry in to ascertain its true financial health
