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The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has identified the health and tertiary institutions as those with high levels of budget padding. This is as the federal government launched the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) with a view to curbing systemic corruption in the country.
            ICPC’s spokesperson, Rasheedat Okoduwa, told Channels TV on Tuesday, December 10, that the anti-graft commission said the introduction of the IPPIS has led to the saving of about N18 billion. Okoduwa said some government ministries and agencies that were hither not covered by the IPPIS had been made to join the scheme. She added that the government is saving more as more ministries and agencies are being covered by the IPPIS. The ICPC spokesperson said a recent report released by the commission had exposed some health and education institutions as the worst culprits in terms of padding budgets allocated to payment of personnel’s salaries. Okoduwa made reference to a financial irregularity the commission flagged at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Bayelsa. According to her, the ICPC uncovered a surplus of over N900 million in the medical centre’s salary purse. She said the management team admitted adding the surplus upon being summoned but claimed that the personnel cost was inflated in order to execute projects which the government could not approve for the medical centre. Meanwhile the FG has being in a war of words battle with ASUU over the introduction of the IPPIS into the university structure. ASUU has come out to blatantly refuse the policy claiming it takes away the autonomy of universities and does not recognize the peculiarities associated with university workers.