Uche Usim, Abuja
Twelve years after the Federal Government introduced the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, has described the initiative as most commendable having saved the country over N250 billion via ghost workers, among other benefits.
This is as the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Ahmed Idris revealed that 700,000 workers drawn from 515 Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were currently on the IPPIS platform.
The two top civil servants made the disclosures on Tuesday, in Abuja at the commencement of a two-day retreat organised by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation with stakeholders on IPPIS, with the theme: “The Role of Ministries Departments and Agencies on the implementation of IPPIS and Its Effect On The Workers Condition Of Service And Government Revenue”.
According to the Head of Service, IPPIS was introduced by the Federal Government in 2007 with a view towards attaining transparency, accuracy and curtailing avoidable excesses in personnel costs.
She said: “IPPIS is an oracle software that consists of five modules; the HR module being the central and other modules include learning management, payroll, business intelligence and self-service.
“It is worthy to mention that the learning management component is on course with the recent presentation of the TNA to the public, very soon training of 25,000 civil servants would commence.
“The Performance Management System (PMS) which would rely on the HR Module is also ongoing. In this regard the PMS policy and guidelines has been presented to stakeholders for their comments before final adoption.
“The activities towards the implementation of the HR module have commenced fully first with the online records update. This was followed by the verification exercise of all public servants, starting with core civil servants with the view of cleansing and migrating the data of all public servants on the IPPIS portal. The verification exercise has been completed in Lagos and Abuja. Indeed the OHCSF being the pilot is now live on the IPPIS portal with employees being able to carry out the self-service component of IPPIS”, she explained.
Oyo-Ita commended the present Accountant-General for being the first to be so determined to implement IPPIS.
“It is important to also mention the effort my office is making towards improving salaries of workers which can only be justified based on savings and blockage of all wastages. You can now apply for leave online and print out your payslips online”, she added.