Oil sector workers, on Tuesday, rejected a move by the Federal Government to incorporate its workers’ wage into the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (lPPIS).
This contained in a letter by the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association to the Minister of Labour and Employment.
The letter was jointly signed by Mr Lumumba Okugbawa, PENGASSAN General Secretary and Mr Olawale Afolabi, NUPENG General Secretary, on Tuesday.
A Circular from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) dated September 7, 2018, directed the enrolment of the Oil and Gas workers on lPPIS, which they frowned at.
This resulted in series of meetings to proffer ways to address the matter, at the end of the meetings; a Technical Committee was set up by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment to assess the Unions’ concerns regarding its implementation.
“It is pertinent to state that this Committee is yet to meet as we write, unfortunately, we have been inundated again by the threat from the Office of the OAGF, via a Circular with reference
number OAGF/IPPIS/93/1187, dated 29th August 2019 to stop the salaries of our members, come October 2019.
“We reaffirm that we are not against the Government Policy regarding IPPIS, but we wish to refer to the existence of Government Integrated Financial Management information System (GIFMIS) platform which is run by the Central Bank of Nigeria.”
According to the statement, GIFMIS was already serving a similar purpose and the Presidential initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) whose responsibility, is to audit the nominal and payroll of Agencies as recently emphasised by the Minister of Finance.
It noted that the unions have, therefore, directed its members in affected regulatory agencies not to provide any information concerning personnel payment and allowances to the Accountant-General’s Office for the purpose of lPPIS, until the Technical Committee meets.
“We are also putting all the implementing agencies of government on notice that if our salaries are stopped without clarification of the issues raised, we will be left with no other option than to withdraw our services without any further notice”.
