The federal government yesterday accused universities of deliberately accommodating dead members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on the payroll forwarded to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF).

OAGF, in a statement, said it had conducted a Biometric Verification Number (BVN) test on the list of personnel forwarded to it by the tertiary institutions only to discover some were dead members who were still on the payroll of the government.

But, in the statement issued by OAGF Director, Information, Press and Public Relations, Mr. Henshaw Ogubike, the federal government noted that the BVN as a means of confirming all account numbers of the tertiary institutions' personnel that was sent to IPPIS, was forwarded to the relevant agencies for validation and confirmation.

Addressing a wide range of issues allegedly in contention between ASUU and the federal government, the latter, however, stated that IPPIS had made a great effort to ensure that placement of tertiary institutions' staff on IPPIS is complete and correct in terms of their particulars and salary structure, grade levels and steps, indicating their IPPIS number as a unique identification for every staff on the platform.

The statement added: "On the alleged payment to dead university staff, it means the institutions deliberately forwarded to IPPIS the list containing dead ASUU members as being part of their personnel, to get more personnel funds.