The introduction of Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) blocked the conduit pipes through which the Federal Government lost about N800 billion to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), it was learnt yesterday.

Labour and Employment Minister Dr Chris Ngige stated this while addressing reporters at his Alor home in Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State.

The minister said there would be no going back in paying university lecturers with the IPPIS, adding that the system had blocked various irregularities in payments.

He recalled that ASUU went on strike because of the introduction of the new payroll system that had blocked the conduit pipes for pilfering huge sums and exposed fraud in the system.

Ngige said the ASUU leadership brought extraneous factors as the reasons for the strike, adding that the union’s strike was illegal and unacceptable. “What ASUU is saying is laughable. Your employers will dictate how they will pay you.

“They can decide to pay you with a cheque, which you sign in your regional office every month and you take your salary and go. They can decide to do electronic transfer. You bring your account number and they do a transfer electronically to you.

“They can decide, for reasons best known to them, that they want you to show up physically and sign for your money in cash in your regional office.

“As an employee, you have no right to dictate to them. The important thing there is for your salary and wages to come to you as and when due. That is what is in the statutes everywhere. But for some strange reasons, this has become an issue with the ASUU.”

“They claimed that they were being migrated from the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System platform into the IPPIS.

“The Federal Government pays their salary and the Federal Government says: ‘We are losing a lot of money paying you from the GIFMIS platform because the GIFMIS platform only transmits money for your salary to the university system, Bursar’s Office and from there they pay you.”