The Federal Government of Nigeria has issued a warning to civil servants, stating that individuals who cannot be verified on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) will be removed from the payroll, with the process set to commence this Friday.
Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), conveyed this warning through a statement released on Wednesday. According to the Director of Communications in her office, Mohammed Ahmed, the two-week verification exercise, which began on October 13, 2023, was initiated as a gesture of goodwill for those officers who had not participated in previous verification exercises.
The IPPIS was introduced by the Federal Government in 2007 to enhance the transparency, accuracy, security, and reliability of personnel records management while also curbing unnecessary personnel cost overruns.
The statement explained that in 2013, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) was tasked with cleansing the payroll records and implemented a portal for online updates of records for all public servants in April 2017. The initiative included extensive sensitization and publicity campaigns through various media channels to encourage compliance, with an initial three-month compliance period that was later extended to one year, ending in May 2018.
The physical verification phase of the exercise commenced in 2018, involving the deployment of 500 OHCSF staff to the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The goal was to enable officers to carry out physical verifications in their respective states, reducing the need for travel to Abuja.
However, some officers who had not complied with the earlier phases sought another opportunity to update their records. The portal was reopened for this purpose from October 3-13, 2023. These officers were subsequently required to come to Abuja for physical verification since the budgeted funds for deploying staff to the states had been exhausted.
The ongoing verification exercise will conclude on Friday, October 27, 2023. The statement further emphasized that the records of all civil servants would be thoroughly verified, and any officer whose records could not be verified would be removed from the government payroll.