Reps Recommend Abolition Of Employment Waivers For Government Agencies

The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee set up to investigate federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), parastatals and tertiary institutions in the mismanagement of personnel recruitment, employment racketeering and gross mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, (IPPIS), has said that it will recommend the abolition of employment waivers which bypasses advertisement of employment opportunities.

The committee chairman, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, made the observation at the resumed investigative hearing in Abuja.

He accused the Registrar of the National Postgraduate Medical College, Prof. Fatiu Arogundade of lopsidedness in recruitment based on the agency’s presentation at the hearing.

Hon. Yusuf expressed worry that almost all the government agencies that had appeared so far for the investigation were carrying out their employment secretly as they always applied for waivers to avoid advertising for various frivolous reasons.

“We will abolish waivers for employment advertisements. We will abolish the use of waivers because waiver is not for the good of this country. It is an abuse on the citizens of Nigeria. When they give you waivers, you share the slots among Directors in the agencies and the political masters that superintend over those agencies. Whether it is the National Assembly I don’t care. But whenever waiver is given, you do not advertise and give opportunity to citizens of this country to have access to recruitment.” Hon Yusuf said.

A member of the committee, Hon Ahmad Jaha, pointed out that nobody from the entire northeast region was captured in the recruitment carried out by the college.

This, he said, contributes to the upsurge of insurgency in the zone as opportunities that should be made public for all to apply are hidden from the people.

“We are all aware what happened as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency and I don’t want to believe you that nobody applied in the whole of the northeast if advertisements were properly done. In my local government alone, Gwoza, we have more than 100 medical doctors, more than 50 consultants and more than 20 professors in medicine.

“There is no way you can look at us as if we do not know what we are doing saying that nobody applied. Let me tell you one thing. If they are searching for sponsors of Boko Haram, if they are searching for the main causes of Boko Haram, your organization is one of them. This is because one of the main reasons why people join Boko Haram is because they are being short-changed.

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“One of the reasons people join Boko Haram is because they do not have anything doing for a living. Somebody cannot go to school and spend years and go to Ibadan and write examinations and become a consultant and now you say you advertise a position and he is there doing nothing for a living and he did not apply?

“How do you expect peace in the country if in the whole region, six states, there is no single employee of your organization. This is to tell you that if we can peruse all the more than 700 or 1000 MDAs in the country, we may hardly have less than five per cent from the northeast and you expect to have peace.

“So we are not happy. We are saying this before the camera and we expect everybody to know. We would be citing this agency as an example of sponsors or causes of Boko Haram up till eternity.” Jaha said

Correcting the imbalance

In his defence, Prof. Arogundade said that the vacancies were widely publicized on social media and the website of the College.

He promised to correct the imbalance in subsequent employment.

The representatives from the Standard Organization of Nigeria were not attended to.

The representatives from the Nigeria Press Council were praised for living up to expectations.

Also on appearance were representatives of the Nigeria Tourism Development Authority.

Emmanuel Ukoh