IPPIS: FG to prosecute over 3,500 civil servants

Head of Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, has said 3657 civil servants will be prosecuted by the Independent and Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over their failure to get verified on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

Yemi-Esan said this on Thursday during the ministerial media briefing at the presidential villa in Abuja.

She said a total of 61,446 civil servants in the core ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) had been verified on the payment platform.

The Federal Government introduced the IPPIS in October 2006 to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in the storage of personnel records and administration of monthly payroll.

The head of the service said about N180 million was saved monthly and N2 billion annually from the implementation of the IPPIS.

Yemi-Esan said the payment platform could accommodate the salaries of university lecturers who had since rejected it, opting for the university transparency and accountability solution (UTAS).

The head of service also commented on the former permanent secretaries that have been jailed for fraud, saying they are victims of the stipulations of the Procurement Act.

She said, “We had a procurement retreat, where that (jailed permanent secretaries) was talked about in very great detail. I think it is called precarious liability, when even somebody else commits a crime it is the permanent secretary that will be held responsible that is what the Procurement Act says today.

“So those are the issues that we face and we are learning lessons from all those cases, I think that is the most important thing. When things happen we should learn lessons from them, and be more careful. And that is what we have done.”