By Udeigwe Chidera and Eze Peter

The Federal Government on Wednesday announced the exemption of Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, and other tertiary institutions from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) payment platform

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) passed the resolution during its weekly meeting presided over by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja

The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Maman, said the heads of the institutions got relief to embark on recruitment exercise without recourse to the Head of Service of the Federation.

The minister said the president had directed that the Vice Chancellor be taken out of the platform that made recruitment difficult to ensure efficient management of those education institutions.

“Simply, the president and the council is just concerned about efficiency of management of the universities and so it has nothing to do with integrity or options of platforms.

“The president cannot understand why Vice Chancellors should be leaving their duty post and run to Abuja to get staff enlisted on IPPIS when they get recruited.

 “The basic concern is that universities are governed by laws. And those laws give them autonomy in certain respects and most respects and the IPPIS has sort of eroded that autonomy granted universities in accordance with their act,” Mamman said.

In his contribution, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Muhammed Idris, said: “The universities and other tertiary institutions have gotten a very big relief from the integrated personnel payroll and information system. You will recall that the university authorities and the others have been clamouring for the exemption of the universities and other tertiary institutions from this system.

 “What that means in simple language is that the university authorities and other tertiary institutions will now be paying their own personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS.”