ASUU denies failure of UTAS integrity test

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has denied the National Information Technology Development Agency’s (NITDA) claim that the integrity test on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) failed (NITDA).

Mr. Emmanuel Osodeke, the President of ASUU, said this in a statement released to the media on Sunday in Abuja.

Osodeke was responding to recent statements claiming that UTAS had failed the integrity test, which were attributed to both the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy and the Director-General of NITDA.

“The need for ASUU to set the record straight on the grounds already covered in our patriotic struggle to get the government to deploy UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our university system necessitates this press statement.

“Let us state for the record that NITDA conducted an integrity test on August 10, 2021 in NUC, in which all relevant government agencies and end-users from the University system were present.

“At the conclusion of the exercise, everyone expressed satisfaction with UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our universities, without exception.”

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“This was supported by a report from NITDA at the time, which stated that UTAS scored 85 percent in the User Acceptance Test (UAT),” he said.

According to him, after conducting a comprehensive functionality test, the NITDA Technical Team concluded that 529 of the 687 test cases were satisfactory, 156 cases were queried, and two cases were cautioned.

He went on to say that if you take this report at face value, the percentage score is 77 percent.

“The question that arises from this is: Can 77 percent be classified as failure in any known fair evaluation system?”

“Suffice it to say that NITDA has made some observations and questions about which the UTAS technical team must respond. Our discussions with NITDA about the second round of testing are still ongoing.

“The union is concerned that, while this exercise is taking place, the Minister and the DG of NITDA went to press after the FEC meeting on March 9, 2022, to mislead the nation into believing that UTAS had failed the integrity test.”

“We would like to draw your attention to the fact that NITDA reported that UTAS performed well in both the integrity test and the user acceptability verification.”

“Clearly, in any known evaluation system, 85 percent and 77% are high class grades.”

“In their desperation to justify their false assertions, they raised issues like data center and UTAS software hosting, which are clearly outside the scope of ASUU’s responsibilities in the UTAS deployment,” he said.

ASUU and NITDA were still involved in the testing process, according to Osodeke, and it’s worth noting that one of NITDA’s core mandates is to encourage local content development.

As a result, he stated that NITDA was responsible for ensuring that the solution developed by Nigerian academics was implemented.

He went on to say that in doing so, the principles of transparency should be followed by making the set of criteria or benchmarks for certification of information technology applications in the country available to the public.

He also urged NITDA’s DG to refrain from making comments that could jeopardize the NITDA Technical Team’s ongoing UTAS testing with its counterparts.

“However, if this behavior continues, we will have no choice but to demand that the NITDA Technical Report on UTAS be made public, along with our Union’s response, in order to shed more light on the ongoing controversies without wasting any more time.”

“For the benefit of our students, union members, and the Nigerian public in general, the DG, NITDA, and the minister supervising the agency are challenged to a public discussion on any national media to put all matters to rest,” he said.

He went on to say that during the strike, the union had been in talks with the government about the underlying issues that prompted it in the first place.

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According to the Nigerian News Agency (NAN), the union began a nationwide warning strike on February 14 to press home its members’ demands.

Funding for the Revitalisation of Public Universities, Earned Academic Allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), and promotion arrears are among the demands of the lecturers.

Renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and inconsistency in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System are among the others (IPPIS).