The Academic Staff Union of Universities has described the directive stopping the salaries of university employees , who have not enrolled on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, as blackmail to weaken workers and make them enroll on the platform .

The Chairman of the University of Port Harcourt Branch of ASUU , Dr Austen Sado , who spoke on Sunday , explained that though some of his colleagues had not been paid salaries since February , the union would not be cowed into enrolling on IPPIS .

Sado , who spoke on the telephone , said , “ It ( directive to stop salaries ) clearly shows that there is something the Federal Government is not telling the people. They are not paying us ( some lecturers) . So, why are they saying by November ?

“What they are doing now is just blackmail and threat to see how they would weaken our members to go and enroll ( on IPPIS ) . People who have not enrolled are not being paid ; some people for eight months , some for three , going to four months . I have not been paid salary since July , while some people have not been paid since February.

“They have not paid us because of IPPIS . A few of the people that registered with IPPIS are being paid . But when they pay them , they don ’t even get the full complement of their salaries; some of them claim that they get like N 50 , 000 , N 60 , 000 , and we are talking about senior lecturers and above.

“A professor told me that what he is getting is N 100, 000 ( as monthly salary ) and yet they want to put more people into that . But we have resolved that we will not succumb to this blackmail.”

Source:- Punch ng