The Accountant General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, has attributed the lingering salary payment crisis in federal tertiary institutions to the hasty and uncoordinated migration from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System to the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday during a one-day interactive meeting with vice-chancellors, rectors, provosts, and heads of regulatory bodies, Ogunjimi said the migration process failed to comply with technical transition guidelines, resulting in widespread disruptions to salary payments, third-party deductions, and pension remittances.
Since assuming office in March 2025, the AGF said he had been overwhelmed with complaints from Pension Fund Administrators, State Internal Revenue Services, microcredit institutions, and staff unions over delays in salary payments and failure to remit statutory deductions.
To manage the transition, he said an Interministerial Technical Committee was earlier constituted to design a seamless migration framework.
The committee, according to him, recommended that the October 2024 payroll be processed on the IPPIS platform while all staff data were to be validated and uploaded onto GIFMIS by October 31, 2024.
That date, he noted, was designated as the final deadline for all enrolment and payroll-related activities on IPPIS.
The committee also advised that trial payrolls for November and December be prepared and verified by IPPIS, but processed through GIFMIS, with a final handover by December 31, 2024.
The AGF said failure to comply with the recommendation for a phased transition, particularly the decision to skip the trial payrolls for the last two months of 2024, led to the current operational challenges
“Failure to comply with the recommendation to prepare a trial payroll for the remaining two months (November and December) of the year 2024, along with IPPIS and the abrupt migration to GIFMIS in the last quarter of the year, heightened some of the challenges experienced,” he said.
He added that his office had held several meetings with institutional bursars and recently approved a collaborative training programme with the Association of Bursars of Nigerian Universities to assist institutions grappling with GIFMIS-related issues.
“Despite all these steps, I still receive catalogues of complaints from the institutions,” he stated, adding that the meeting was convened to provide a platform for all stakeholders to resolve outstanding concerns collectively.
Ogunjimi said the feedback gathered from the session would inform the design of the proposed training programme and urged all institutions to participate fully when the programme is scheduled.
In his goodwill message, the Auditor-General for the Federation, Shaakaa Chira, commended the AGF for initiating the stakeholder dialogue, describing it as both timely and strategic.
Chira identified recurring issues such as overpayment of salaries, irregular appointments, non-remittance of statutory deductions, violation of integration protocols, and unauthorised allowances as major infractions observed during audits of tertiary institutions.
He warned that these anomalies often lead to audit queries, surcharges, financial losses, and reputational risks for affected institutions.
The Auditor-General called on the institutions to openly share operational challenges such as IPPIS integration delays and remittance issues, while pledging his office’s readiness to collaborate with the OAGF and other stakeholders to improve systems performance and service delivery in the education sector.
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