ASUU Strike: UTAS is an Unfit Payment platform says FG
As the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) one-month warning strike gradually enters the fourth week, the Federal Government, claims ASUU was yet to upgrade and return the Universities Transparency Accountability Solution, which is said to have failed the integrity test.
The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa, made this known to State House correspondents shortly after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Recall that ASUU had presented the UTAS to the Federal Government as its preferred alternative payment platform in lieu of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
The Federal Government had insisted that UTAS, having failed the required credibility tests, was unfit to be used as a payment platform. ASUU, however, is displeased with this claim and accuses the Federal Government of intentionally refusing to accept an alternative to the IPPIS.
Speakig about the government’s position on UTAS, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, explained that when he received a letter from the Minister of Labour and Employment, Hon. Chris Ngige, requesting a review of the technical ability of UTAS, he forwarded the request to National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
In the minister’s words: “NITDA conducted their analyses, testing and sent back results to me, and i drafted a cover letter, which I forwarded to the Minister of Labour and Employment, I also copied the Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to the letter, and also the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and even the National Universities Commission.”
After Pantami’s speech, he asked the Director General of NITDA to expatiate more on the current state of affairs between the Federal Government and ASUU.
Inuwa said, “When we received the request to review UTAS, which is a complex system that involves employees’ data and also payment system, we had to subject it to the very best practice tests before approving. Normally, when we are reviewing that kind of system, we perform three tests.
“First and foremost, when you’re building such a payment platform, the people who are meant to use it need to be considered above any other thing. Because when you fail to align people, processes and technology, you will never get results. No matter how good the technology is, people need to understand how to use it otherwise it will be useless. And if the process is different from the way the people work, it will also be useless. which is a required process of building technology.
“The second test, that was carried out was about what the business required and What it could achieve. Inuwa said this based on the technology ASUU wanted to introduce and the calibre of personnel who would operate the technology.
“The third test, was the stress test that is necessary to ensure that the system could do what it was designed for, and work effectively.
The NITDA boss concluded that, we ran all these three tests and the system failed all three of them. We wrote the reports and submitted them back to the honourable minister, which he forwarded to all relevant institutions, including ASUU. As we speak now, ASUU is working on trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system and we will review it again, but that is just one half of the story.
“The second half of the story is that we need to find where to put that system. We have a data centre built for IPPIS. but where are we going to put UTAS? That means we need to create a data centre for UTAS and also check to ensure that it meets the minimum requirement. Because if the system which contains people information crashes, how can their salaries be paid?
“Redundancy needs to be built. There are a lot of things that need to be done. However as we speak, ASUU is trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system. After then,we would work on the second half of the story, which is where to install it.”
Reacting to this revelation, ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke accused Pantami of trying to seek vengeance over the issue of the professorship, which he was awarded by the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, which the Union opposed.
In his words: “What the minister said, is untrue, he is barely taking vengeance against ASUU for the FUTO ‘fraudfessorship’. The report by the NITDA showed that UTAS scored more than 80 percent on technical assessment and more than 85 per cent on end user assessment. How can one say that 80 percent and 85 percent are failures? we disagree with such report.
