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The Federal Government’s target of ensuring full implementation of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System (IPPIS) and the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) by December 2013 has been delayed by the inability of the Implementation Committee on IPPIS/GIFMIS to establish a full list of MDAs yet to be incorporated on the platforms due to’ logistics difficulties’.
The platforms’ full rollout is also being torpedoed by the recent oil workers’ threat to “reciprocate with an unfathomable industrial crisis if the government insists on imposing the IPPIS and its several impediments and hardship on the personnel records and payroll system in the oil and gas industry.”
Sources close to the deployment of the platforms told THISDAY that while the IPPIS/GIFMIS Implementation Committee inaugurated last year by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to ensure the full roll out of the platforms in all the MDAs by the end of December last year worked assiduously to achieve its mandate, what has been described as ‘logistics’ challenges posed a serious impediment to the actualisation of the target.
Besides, the federal government is said to be careful in order to integrate all the MDAs in the platforms without triggering any industrial unrest at this critical time, by those opposed to their deployment.
Our sources stated that the federal government sees IPPIS as a potent tool to check the menace of ‘ghost workers’ to which billions of naira in public funds have been lost over the years, adding that huge savings of public money have been made through the IPPIS.
So far, about 46, 861 ghost workers have been removed from the Federal Government payroll with the introduction of IPPIS, resulting in a savings of about N139 billion.
While setting up the implementation committee headed by the immediate past Minister of State, Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, Okonjo-Iweala had disclosed that 153,019 staff members from 215 MDAs have been captured under IPPIS while the remaining 321 MDAs would be captured before the end of last year, adding that the entire budget for that year was expected to be implemented through GIFMIS.
She said going by the results so far, the IPPIS which is targeted at enhancing the efficiency of personnel cost, planning and budgeting and GIFMIS which aims at improving the acquisition, utilisation and conservation of public financial resources; could be adjudged as huge successes.
The terms of reference of the include: identifying MDAs already connected to GIFMIS and IPPIS and establishing a list of those not currently on these platforms; reviewing the effectiveness of the operation of these systems with a view to identifying weaknesses in the internal control system and rectifying same.
The committee is to define modalities as well as implementation plan and also take appropriate actions to ensure that all MDAs are connected to these systems by the end of the year and is expected to submit monthly progress reports to the minister and a comprehensive report and recommendations on the completion of their assignment.
Following the recent deadline given by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to some agencies in the oil and gas industry to key into the platforms, workers under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), had threatened to ignite an industrial crisis should the platforms be introduced in their sector.
They claimed that the government agencies in the oil and gas sector were currently operating a very efficient, transparent and International Financial Reporting System (IFRS) and that there was no need to introduce a new system that would drag the industry’s payroll system back.
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