FG saves N120bn through IPPIS, reduces ghost workers, personnel costs

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, Tuesday said the federal government had till date saved over N120 billion from the elimination of ghost workers through the operation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), from April 2007. He said the savings also captured excess personnel cost discovered which had been siphoned into non-personnel sub-heads by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) but returned at the instance of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation. He said: 'From April 2007, when the scheme commenced to date, 246 MDAs were enrolled with a total number of 250,000 members of staff and about N120 billion cumulatively saved as a result of the difference between the amount government would have released to the MDAs based on appropriation and actual amount released and paid through IPPIS.' Speaking in Abuja, on the Peer Review Mechanism during the visit of thea Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and the Peer Review Team of Permanent Secretaries to the Office, Otunla said the IPPIS had also led to the streamlining of personnel process and payroll. He said the Government Integrated Financial Management Information system (GIFMIS) ” went live in April, 2012 and as at date, it has over 209 MDAs on the system.' The accountant-general noted that the GIFMIS had enabled government to 'increase the ability of the federal government to undertake central control and monitoring of expenditures and receipts in the MDAs; facilitates access to information on financial and operational performance; improves internal controls to prevent and detect potential and actual fraud; strengthens governance and accountability, through efficient and effective service delivery.” On the performance analysis of recurrent, statutory transfer and capital releases for the period January to June, 2013, the AGF said of the N962 billion releases for personnel cost, the sum of N960 billion had been cash-backed; overhead of N262 billion releases made; the sum of N262 billion had been cashed backed while out of the N600 billion releases for capital vote, the same amount of N600 billion had also been cash-backed. He added that all the statutory transfers worth N161 billion had been cash-backed. Meanwhile, responding, the Permanent Secretary, Career Management of the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, Dr. Ezekiel Oyemomi, who represented the Head of the Service of the Federation, Bukar Goni Aji, stressed that the peer review is a self-assessment and self-appraisal of the service to ascertain 'whether we are what people say we are.' He said the essence of the exercise was to identify the positive practices in one ministry or agency in order to replicate such good deeds in other MDAs for the general good of the Nigerian economy.