ASUU’s Preferred Payment Platform Lacks Hardware For Implementation

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has revealed that the payment software being proposed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) lacks the required hardware for its implementation.

BizWatchNigeria recalls that ASUU is currently on strike in protest against the Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) which has forced students to stay home for 10 months.

The union proposed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to the government as an alternative.

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However, aside from hardware, Ngige said the integrity test being conducted on the software would take between six and eight months to be completed.

Speaking with State House correspondents after a meeting he had with the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Ngige said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was conducting the integrity test on the software.

The minister, however, said while the software was available, there was no hardware to back it up saying that if the software passed the integrity test being conducted by NITDA, the university teachers did not have the needed fund to procure the necessary hardware for its implementation.

He said, “The UTAS, that is the University Transparent System which they brought is not yet ready.
“It is undergoing an integrity test for the software. I am not a computer scientist, but you must also know that you must test the hardware and the integrity test for the software.

“As we speak, ASUU has no hardware and UTAS does not have hardware backing. “I am waiting for the NITDA’s full report but the preliminary report they gave me, the software integrity test will take them about six to eight weeks and thereafter, we go to the hardware. “But the big issue is who will provide the hardware?

“ASUU does not have the finances to do so. Has the government budgeted for it now as we speak? So, that one is a major problem. But we don’t have to dissuade anybody, we don’t have to tell anybody not to carry on, we like local content development, we need our things to be homegrown. So, we are really encouraging them.”