Job Racketeering: Reps Chide Fiscal Responsibility, Hydrological Agencies

House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Job Racketeering has upbraided the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) and Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency for imbalanced recruitment, favouring particular states to others’ detriment.

The Ad-hoc committee gave this indication after perusing the nominal rolls of the agencies at its resumed investigative hearing in Abuja yesterday.

The committee’s chairman, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi while interrogating the FRC executive chairman, Victor Muruako frowned at the lack of federal character in the nominal roll of staff of the commission.

Gagdi stated that in documents before the committee, Imo State where Muruako hailed from has the highest number of staff with 14, Benue came second with eight, others have one each while Bauchi, Borno, Kwara, Lagos, Osun have no personnel in the commission.

He said, “In the appendix 5- summary page, I see that Imo state has the highest with 14 staff, Benue is second with eight while Bauchi, Borno, Kwara, Lagos, Osun has zero. In fact, apart from Imo and Benue, no state has more than four staff.

“Is it because you are from Imo State and you decided to corner all the jobs to your state? We want to right these wrongs and ensure that the principle of federal character is strictly complied with by MDAs.”

While grilling the director-general of the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, Clement Nze, the lawmaker disapproved of the prevalence of staff of the agency coming from the head’s state, Abia which has 11 of which seven were from his Ummonochi local government area, lamenting that other states have either two, one or nill.

The committee also picked holes in the indication that out of seven staff from Borno state, three were from Askira Uba local government area where the agency’s director of Hydrogeophysics, Stephen Margima Jabo hailed.

Ruling on the matter, Gagdi directed the director-general of the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency to furnish the committee with a comprehensive list of staff spread by states.

The FRC chairman had in his response to the panel’s concerns said the last two recruitments by the commission were in 2010 and 2012 before he assumed duty and assured that the imbalances would be redressed in the next exercise.

Muruako maintained that he was not responsible for the previous recruitments, saying he only brought in two assistants who are not statutory staff of the commission but political appointees.