New employees suspect the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) management might be using their accounts to illegally draw money from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

FIJ learnt that the management recruited 60 medical personnel, including nurses and doctors, in January.

As a federal establishment, workers at the institution get their salaries through the IPPIS, a centralised system created by the government to sanitise its payroll and curb corruption.

For some reason, these new employees did not get any salary until July. When their combined salaries came in, the management came up with many surprises.

In July, the management claimed it erroneously overpaid these workers and directed them to return the excess funds. After a series of demands from the management, the workers hesitantly returned the money. Some of them felt the error could be genuine, however.

As months passed by, they noticed a pattern.

“Some of us shared our concerns with some of our older colleagues. To our dismay, they said it is a longstanding pattern in the institution,” Kabirat Sunday*, one of the new employees at LUTH, told FIJ.

READ ALSO: LUTH Doctors Employed One Year Ago Have Not Been Paid a Dime — And the Hospital Is Helpless

FIRST “OVERPAYMENT”

Although the medical officers were employed in the first week of January and the federal government followed their appointment date to pay them for that month, the hospital management claimed they were not entitled to the January salary and forcefully took back the money from them.

“But because of the IPPIS registration that they [hospital authorities] needed to do for us, they did not pay our salaries and allowances for a period of six months,” Sunday said.

“Our appointments were effective from January 2, but they refused to pay us from that date. They changed the effective dates on the IPPIS to any dates they liked. Most of us who started working at the same time do not have the same start date on our pay slips.”

Soon after these personnel received their arrears of salaries, Adetayo Ademiju, a finance officer at the hospital’s Salaries and Wages Department, began to send messages via SMS and WhatsApp, claiming they had been overpaid and asking them to return the excess.

A screenshot of a WhatsApp message sent by the hospital’s finance officer Adetayo Ademiju.

Aside from claiming that they were overpaid, the finance department said they were to refund their January and half of February salaries because “they did not work for those days”.

“When they finally paid, they paid from January to July. Surprisingly, we got a message from the management that we were not eligible for the January salary. Meanwhile, we were there in January doing medicals and other associated activities as part of our onboarding process,” Sunday told FIJ.

“We believed it should be our money because we were convinced that the payment reflected the fact that the government had the right data and information about our appointment dates. Powerlessly, we ended up returning the money to the hospital via its Remita platform.”

But the authorities were not done with their claims.

They said that there was a need for these workers to return some portion of their March to July salaries owing to overpayment.

“Truly, our salaries for the actual months they said we were entitled to be paid for were more than normal. They said it was a mistake,” Joshua Kamorudeen*, another hospital staff, said.

“But because everybody in our cohort was involved, we felt it could have been a genuine mistake. In the end, most of us remitted the excess. This remittance depended on each worker’s salary scale.”

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SECOND “OVERPAYMENT”

Beyond their salaries, medical workers receive certain allowances, including shift and call allowances, tied to the nature of their work. And these workers are not an exception.

When they received their bulked salaries for January to July, these allowances were not included. In November, the management combined the allowances and paid them for the six-month period.

Curiously, it came in excess as it happened with their salaries. Now, some of the staff say that the management team could be dishonest about the overpayment claims and might be using their accounts to illegally draw money from the federal purse.

“In November, we received overpayment again and it depended on one’s cadre. Some were paid in excess of N1 million and they have started sending us messages and reminders to return to the management account as usual,” Kamorudeen said on Thursday.

“We were prompted to ask ourselves what the payment was for again. There is no way anyone would make that kind of mistake. Our shift allowance is about N11,000 and the call allowance is a little above N30,000 monthly. If you combine February to July, that gives you just N204,500. So tell me why someone would truthfully enter figures in millions of naira, not just for one person, but for all of us employed at the same time.

“Their claims do not add up. No matter how one looks at it, one will continue to see lies through their words. So, it seems like they are intentionally paying us in excess through the IPPIS, which is being controlled by the federal government, and getting it back from us into the hospital’s account.”

On December 2, Ademiju, the finance officer, texted the new employees asking them to urgently refund the money or risk being denied subsequent salaries:

Pleased (sic) be informed that your Nov 2024 salary was overpaid. This is as a result of implementation of your call duty/shift allowance. Kindly visit salaries and wages (Luth) on how to refund. Please treat as urgent (sic). Thank you.

A screenshot of a December 2 text sent by Ademiju.

In a reminder, he wrote, “Sequel to the management’s text message of Dec 2, 2024, our records showed that you have not refunded the salary overpayment of Nov 2024. Please be informed that failure to refund before Dec 31, 2024, will prevent you from January 2024. Kindly provide evidence of refund if you have done so. Please treat as urgent. Frm Salaries & Wages, LUTH.”

There is a pattern that looks unconvincing to these employees and they perceive these overpayments as fraudulent.

FIJ is in possession of some payslips proving the deduction by, and remittances of these ‘overpayments’ to, the management.

“So, I just feel like they’re using us to commit fraud because the federal government is sending them any amount they type into their system for staff salaries,” another recent employee explained.

A reminder sent by Ademiju on behalf of the management.

“If you look at the structure, it is like a racket: They move the money from the IPPIS, drop it into our account under the pretext of salaries, and then get back the money to the hospital’s account through us. I don’t know what they’re using it for, but it does not look right to me. And this is the second time in one year.

“It is not so difficult to input figures. Some of us cannot be fooled. So they cannot tell me they are not all in cahoots manipulating the system and they are using our accounts to do it.”

READ ALSO: REVEALED: IPPIS Payroll Validation, FG Workers’ Personal Data on OAGF Website Have Been Hijacked

FEAR OF POTENTIAL IMPLICATION

There are fears among these workers that the suspicious payments could compromise their credibility and the integrity of their accounts.

“Should the government decide to audit the hospital or a law enforcement agency looks into their books, they might implicate us in their findings,” Kamorudeen said.

“Apart from this, how does one account for the money one does not earn?

“Imagine the government suspects my account and flags it for fraud. How do I explain the source of the money? Whereas I am not the one committing the fraud. All of us are not happy about it.

“They know exactly our salary grades? Why not pay us exactly that? Why will they continue to overpay us and claim it is an error?”

Efforts to get LUTH’s comment on this story were unsuccessful.

FIJ spoke with the finance officer who sent the messages on Tuesday, but he said he had no permission to speak with the press.

“Please, go to the public relations officer’s office to make your inquiry. I can’t talk about it. It’s an order from the management,” Ademiju said on Tuesday. He declined a request for the PRO’s number.

Pius Ewa, who used to speak for the hospital’s communication officer, told FIJ in a text on Tuesday that he had been transferred to another hospital and that he did not have the current spokesperson’s phone number.

* Staff names were changed to protect their identity.
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