ABUJA, Nigeria — Haruna Kolo, the ex-IPPIS desk officer at the Federal Character Commission, FCC, during a House of Representative ad hoc committee hearing on Monday, August 7, 2023, has revealed collecting a whopping sum of N75 million from job seekers.
He claims he acted on the instructions of FCC’s chairperson, Farida Dankaka.
According to Kolo, Dankaka directed him to deposit these funds into his personal account and later hand over the cash to her during multiple meetings at her residence.
The House of Representative ad hoc committee is currently investigating the alleged mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, by various federal MDAs, parastatals, and tertiary institutions.
Kolo disclosed his resignation from FCC in 2022, transitioning to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON.
Still, he received a salary from FCC even after his resignation. When he notified the HR officer at FCC about the unexpected payments, he was casually informed that it would be handled.
Further shedding light on the shady dealings, Kolo remarked, “Shehu, an associate to Taraba State’s commissioner, introduced those who paid substantial sums into my account for jobs. Payments ranged from N1 million to N1.5 million. Following Dankaka’s directive, I gave her the cash using POS, leaving no electronic evidence of the transaction.”
He also refuted the accusations of simultaneously holding seven jobs, attributing such claims to mere assumptions.
This revelation has added a new dimension to the ongoing investigations into the mismanagement of the IPPIS.
The committee is expected to delve deeper into these claims to uncover the full extent of the malpractice within the FCC and other institutions.
We’ll Support Any Move To Curb Corruption In IPPIS – ASUU
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has pledged its readiness to fully support any step to eradicate corrupt practices from the university system.
Biodun Ogunyemi, the union’s national president, was speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Forum in Abuja on Sunday, on ASUU’s stand with the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS.
President Muhammudu Buhari, had on October 8, 2019, directed all government employees to be enrolled into IPPIS to ensure accountability and curb corruption in the system.
Ogunyemi said that the union had developed a prototype of the IPPIS, called University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, which it urged the government to implement rather than the IPPIS.
“2014, February precisely, after much debate about IPPIS, we told the government our reservations about IPPIS and the uniqueness of the universities.
“We thought they agreed with us, they said we should nominate three people, and they will also nominate three persons; and then we should come up with a platform that will be acceptable to ASUU.
“We did not hear anything from them, and when they came back in July 2019, it was now a story that government has made up his mind that it is IPPIS.
“The platform we had in mind is the one we have now started because they pushed us to the point of taking on the challenge.
“ASUU will sponsor the development of that platform which we call University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS.
“UTAS came about as a way of showing them that we are not against their war against corruption, that ASUU fully supports any step that will nip corruption in the bud,’’ he said.
Ogunyemi, however, said that the union would resist any move by the Federal Government to move the universities back into core civil service.
He urged the government to implement UTAS and develop a system that would be resident in the universities.
He said this would give the government access to control and monitor activities and progress of the universities.
“The difference between what they are doing now and UTAS is that what they are doing now is just government information system for payment.
“They just send the wage bill for universities into the university account, and they ask them to pay, and they monitor.
“In the case of UTAS, all the personnel information and the payroll system will be uploaded, and there are about five components which we have segmented and developed.
“Not everybody will have access to all of these, so we are saying that the best way to ensure university autonomy is to develop a system that will be resident in the university; but those in government can have access to control and monitor it.
“This will secure and safeguard the autonomy of the universities, and that will also give government the opportunity to monitor what is going on in the system as regularly as they want to.
“So if they had cooperated with us in 2014, by now IPPIS would have been another matter. Let me also tell you this as we have argued that this system is not in the best interest of Nigerians,’’ he added.
According to the ASUU president, attempts by the government to impose the enrolment of lecturers on the IPPIS platform is a plot to distract the union from its 2009 renegotiation agreement.
