The Minister of Labour and Employment,Dr Chris Ngige said the University Transparency And Accountability Solution UTAS, the alternative payroll system proposed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is not ready as the software is undergoing integrity test at the moment.
Ngige who spoke to State House Correspondents in Abuja on Monday said that the software which ought to be operated on a hardware is not available as ASUU does not have the finances to provide the hardware.
The Minister explained that by the time government goes through with the testing of the software to check its ability to withstand shocks, hacking and security ,same as the hardware , government will decide on what to do..
He however said that while the testing was going on which would take up to 8, weeks there was the need to pay the ASUU members and urged the striking Union to rescind its decision and go back to the classroom for the sake of the children of the poor.
ASUU had proposed UTAS as alternative payroll system to the federal government IPPIS on which basis and other issues it embarked on industrial action since March 2020.
