One more strike that we cannot afford Posted by Editor In the last three months, Nigerians have witnessed a run of strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Worker (NUPENG), Medical and Health Workers Union, and threats of strike by the Petroleum and National Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). This country simply cannot afford another strike now, least of all by the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA). Yet, in less than twenty days, the medical association might be embarking on a nation-wide strike that will no doubt cripple the nation’s health sector. Indications of the looming strike were given yesterday in a communiqué issued by the medical association at the end of its 2013 National Executive Council meeting in Sokoto; in which it gave the federal government a 21-day ultimatum to resolve medical staff payment issues or face an industrial action. The body’s grouse with the federal government is the alleged poor implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS). The IPPIS is a system designed to digitally integrate the personnel data of federal workers in order to weed out ghost workers and enhance transparency in salary payments. According to the association, however, “Since the commencement of the implementation of IPPIS in federal public hospitals, it has greatly undermined the welfare of doctors many of whom have had to endure over three months of non-payment of salaries due to the irregularities in the implementation of IPPIS”. The body therefore urged government “to urgently correct the numerous deficiencies within the next 21 days or stop the use of IPPIS as a means of payment of the salaries of doctors in public hospitals”. It is easy to understand why the NMA is bothered by the poor implementation of the IPPIS. But it is not just members of the NMA that are suffering as a result of this inefficiency. It is every civil servant whose ministry, department or agency has signed on to the IPPIS. The payment system was introduced in October 2006 by the Bureau of Public Service Reform to “entrench transparency and accountability in the public service human resources records and payroll administration”. By last year, more than 100,000 public workers were covered by IPPIS in 94 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). This year, the federal government claimed it has saved about N119 billion since it adopted the system. This supposed gain of the scheme prompted President Goodluck Jonathan to issue a deadline to all MDAs to join the scheme by 31 December 2013. While it is commendable that the IPPIS is blocking leakages in Nigeria’s bloated civil service, there are serious issues that must be addressed if the scheme is to be successful. The first and most important course of action is to perfect the technical aspects of the IPPIS to avoid any delays in the payment of salaries. This is what the NMA is advocating. It, however, appears that the government is grossly underestimating the issue even though it has dragged on for years. Last year, government workers whose MDAs are implementing IPPIS were left stranded month after month because of “intermittent internet connectivity”. The situation forced the Accountant-General of the Federation, Jonah Otunla, to publicly declare that the government was “slowing down” on the implantation of IPPIS. On that occasion, Mr Otunla told members of the House Committee on Finance that “we have some system problems that are not too strange to a system that is just taking off”. The system, which is seven years old now, still suffers the challenges that MR Otunla identified last year. Despite the government’s inability to manage a system that caters to only 94 MDAs since 2006, President Jonathan is bent on getting all 400 MDAs on board in the next three months. This calls for concern and should be addressed. More urgently, however, the government must find a way to pacify the NMA before its members embark on a strike. If the NMA is allowed to strike over failures in the implementation of IPPIS, there is every chance that federal workers in the other 90 or so MDAs that also implement IPPIS will follow suit. The effect of this can only be imagined. As cliché as it sounds, a stitch in time saves nine.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 06:56:33 +0000
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