 |
| Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla |
The Federal Government has suspended the March salaries of over 1,000 civil servants, who had refused to comply with the directive for the upgrade of their accounts to the 10-digit Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number.
The Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at a workshop on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had released the guidelines on the NUBAN scheme in August 2010 to achieve a uniform numbering structure among all Deposit Money Banks in the country within nine months.
The NUBAN, according to the CBN, has the potential to resolve problems with electronic payments as many of them are related to specification of wrong beneficiary account numbers.
The initial deadline was June 1, 2011. This was extended by the CBN to June 1, 2012; and at the expiration of that date, it was further extended to July 1, 2013.
The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation had last year stated that since the NUBAN scheme became fully operational on July 1, 2013, all members of staff of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies were supposed to have complied with it.
Otunla urged the workers to make sure that they had the NUBAN, which he said was the major challenge the office was facing in paying them.
He, however, said about N35bn had been paid as salaries for the month of March to 283,000 employees of the 308 MDAs captured under the IPPIS platform.
The IPPIS is an innovation of the Federal Government that is meant to enhance planning and budgeting by making personnel cost to be based on actual verified figures and not estimates.
The AGF, who was represented at the forum by the Co-ordinator, IPPIS, AGF Office, Mrs. Fatima Mede, said, “In March, 283,000 workers were paid about N35bn. These cut across 308 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government we currently have on the system.
“We are hopeful that by June, we should have all federal MDAs in the country on the IPPIS network.”
Otunla said also that his office had commenced work on getting all the federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education as well as para-military agencies on the IPPIS platform.
He said that the IPPIS would enable the government to keep tab on its recurrent expenditure.
The AGF said, “This workshop is aimed at identifying and discussing some of the challenges encountered with the IPPIS system so that together, we can strategise and come up with solutions to these bottlenecks.
“I know that some MDAs have been having problems such as salary delays, wrong grade level placements and so on. But it will interest you to know that most of these challenges are due to wrong paper work or late submission of correct information that will guide in the payment on time.”
Also speaking at the event, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar Aji, called on all stakeholders in the civil service to synergise in order to ensure the success of the IPPIS programme.
The Deputy Director, Expenditure, Budget Office of the Federation, Mrs. Olukemi Arodudu, reminded the MDAs of the directive to seek approval from the office before employing new members of staff.
Download National Common Entrance Examination Past Questions and Answers
Download unlimited e-books in various disciplines for FREE
Get Breaking News on BBM - add our PIN - 232FC0E9
Follow on Twitter to receive updates every hour
Don't miss the next news item - LIKE our Facebook page
No comments:
Post a Comment