Job Racketeering: Reps Mull Abolishing Employment Waivers For MDAs

The House of Representatives ad-hoc Committee on job racketeering said it would take steps to abolish employment waivers for Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).

The committee chairman, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, gave this indication when the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN), appeared before the panel in Abuja, yesterday.

Gagdi expressed displeasure over  the non-representation of 12 states in the NPMCN nominal roll, noting that heads of agencies mostly employ their cronies whenever waiver is granted without recourse to the federal character principle.

He said: “Waiver is not good for this country. It is an abuse on the citizens of this country. When they give you waivers you share the slots among the directors of the agency and political masters that superintend over those agencies whether it is National Assembly, I don’t care.

“Whenever waiver is given, you do not advertise and give opportunity to citizens to have access to recruitment. In your recruitment in 2021, you didn’t know FCT has zero, Zamfara has zero, Yobe has zero, Taraba has zero, Sokoto has zero, Nasarawa zero, Kebbi zero, Katsina zero, Jigawa zero, Gombe zero, Borno zero, Bauchi zero, Adamawa zero, Rivers and Plateau that have zero you decided to give them one slot each.

“Why didn’t you share those vacancy across the states in the North East? But remember that the Federal Character we are talking about is not an Act of Parliament. We are talking about provision of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Assuming we nullify the employment, would you have queried our decision? Would you think we are not right to say that the recruitment should not stand?

“In your nominal roll you only recruited in 2019 and 2021. But your nominal role keeps on increasing. We are expecting that since staff are retiring it should be decreasing. If you did not recruit in 2022, your nominal role should decrease,” he said.

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The registrar of NPMCN, Prof. Akinsanya Olayinde Osibogun, claimed that the people from the North East did not apply when there was vacancy, but added that majority of the consultants are from the region.

He said: “However, as you said concerning the North East, it is not as if the college does not involve people in the North East. Majority of teachers and resident doctors across the North Eastern states are consultant working in the North East.

“What we are trying to site is the monitoring centre in the North East. The Centre will be headed by a consultant.

“If we do not have a consultant that will head the centre, it will be difficult for us to employ clerks and other cadre of staff that will be there.

“Nominal roll did not really increase. If you look at it between 2015 and 2018, it progressively reduced. It was not until 2019 that it increased. And if you look at page 60, sir, we documented all the retirement during the period.”

In his intervention, a member of the committee, Ahmed Jaha advised the leadership of the NPGMC, to be sensitive to the geographical spread in terms of employment.

“I want to advice you as a human resource specialist. Any organisation that has an intention for expansion or diversification according to geographical zones, that particular organisation must start with employees or personnel from each and every zone of the federation.’’

“So that at the end of the day, if you are trying to open a regional office in the North East, you already have somebody in your organisation that is conversant with the North East.”

“But if today, you are given an approval and my governor gave you the site which I know he will do to open the office, and you are going to send somebody that is not conversant with the place.

“And if that particular person is going to bring the print and electronic media applications, he may not go there.

“If he must go, he will need to gather prayer warriors to pray for him because he is going to a death zone. So, the most important thing is for you to have a representative from each zone,” he added.