By Chris DANLADI, Abuja
Commences Verification Of Police Personnel
The office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris has Saved over N220 billion since the introduction of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS from inception to date.
This is in furtherance of the Federal Government initiative to promote accountability and transparency and as part of its cost – control and cost – reduction measures especially in view of its present deplorable financial position, a Presidential directive was issued early this year to all MDAs drawing their Personnel costs from the Treasury to join the IPPIS Platform.
This was contained in a brief at the successful conclusion of the verification of officers and civilian staffers of the NigeriA Police Force with a view to enrolling them into the, IPPIS.
The office explained that a total of 447 MDAs are already on IPPIS, including all the core Ministries, Medical and Allied Health Institutions, Agencies under Ministry of Science and Technology, among others. 56 of them came on board in 2016. The Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) is one of the Federal Government Reform Initiatives conceived to transform the Nigerian Public Service and make it more efficient and effective in service delivery.
The IPPIS initiative is aimed at improving the management of human resources and providing a centralized payroll system in the service. The project implementation commenced at the Bureau of Public Service Reforms before its management was transferred to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) in October 2008. The project went live in April 2007 with seven (7) Pilot Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
According to the brief, obtained by nationalTRAIL, with the objectives of the programme amongst others things a Centralized payment of salaries, Facilitation of convenient staff remuneration payment with minimal wastage and the easy storage, updating and retrieval of personnel record for administrative and pension processing; IPPSI also aids manpower planning and budgeting;
Other objectives of the scheme include, ascertaining actual personnel emoluments of the Federal Government employee, Prompt deduction and remittance to accounts of all third parties such as PFAs, NHF, PAYE, amongst others, even as its benefits include, Prompt and easy payment of salaries to Public servants; Storage of Personnel records in a centralized database; Ascertainment of actual personnel costs of Federal Public servants; Biometric capturing of all staff, elimination of ghost workers in the Public Service; and Prompt remittances of third parties deductions to PFAs, NHF and PAYE etc; as well as providing substantial savings in Personnel costs by Federal Government which are being used for Overhead and Capital releases to MDAs.
The brief also explained that, MDAs on board IPPIS enjoy the flexibility to carry out some basic operations on the IPPIS Application. This is to enable them execute some transactions, without recourse to IPPIS secretariat. These among others include suspension/re-instatement into payroll, changes of bank records and change of grade levels/steps. These operations are however subject to necessary approvals/approval levels.
The Honourable Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun has been giving support to IPPIS in ensuring that this directive is carried out. The outstanding MDAs include the Nigeria Police Force and other Para-Military Agencies (Nigeria prisons, Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and Federal Fire Services), the Military (Army, Navy and Air Force) and all Federal Institutions (Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education) as well as Agencies in the Petroleum Sector. Already plans have reached different stages of their enrolment processes and are to be completed before the end of 2016 financial year.
On the current verification exercise which involves the verification of all Officers and the Civilian Staff who are on the payroll of the Nigerian Police Force and whose salaries are being paid in Kaduna and Ogun states, the report explained, the AGF office has been able to among others identify and weed out those staff that have retired, died, those without genuine documents as well as duplicated names, with a view to having a clean payroll for the Nigeria Police Force.
The exercise is being anchored by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Nigeria Police Force and the Police Service Commission and will take place simultaneously in 8 locations in Kaduna and 5 locations in Ogun states respectively.
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