The federal government has been accused of blackmailing the Academic Staff Union of Universities following a recent directive stopping the salaries of university employees who have not enrolled on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
ASUU described the government’s order as a means to weaken workers and make them enroll on the platform.
The Chairman of the University of Port Harcourt Branch of ASUU , Dr Austen Sado , who spoke on Sunday , explained that though some of his colleagues had not been paid salaries since February , the union would not be cowed into enrolling on IPPIS .
Sado, who spoke on the telephone, said , “It ( directive to stop salaries ) clearly shows that there is something the Federal Government is not telling the people. They are not paying us ( some lecturers) . So, why are they saying by November ?
“What they are doing now is just blackmail and threat to see how they would weaken our members to go and enroll ( on IPPIS ) . People who have not enrolled are not being paid ; some people for eight months , some for three , going to four months . I have not been paid salary since July , while some people have not been paid since February.
“They have not paid us because of IPPIS . A few of the people that registered with IPPIS are being paid . But when they pay them , they don ’t even get the full complement of their salaries; some of them claim that they get like N 50 , 000 , N 60 , 000 , and we are talking about senior lecturers and above.
“A professor told me that what he is getting is N 100, 000 ( as monthly salary ) and yet they want to put more people into that . But we have resolved that we will not succumb to this blackmail.”
