- Such problems will persist for as long as we keep shielding the perpetrators
Rather than keep inundating Nigerians with grim statistics of infractions in government’s establishments, the Federal Government should begin to apply sanctions against perpetrators of the infractions, some bordering on the criminal. We cannot remember how many times the government had alerted that government had been paying hundreds of ghost workers, but hardly has there been any attempt to hand over those involved to the security agencies for investigation and possible prosecution. Yet, we all know that ghosts cannot collect salaries and if they can, they cannot do the documentations to the point of being paid.
What we are hearing now is that many government’s ministries, departments and parastatals (MDAs) have been doing large-scale illegal recruitments. The Acting Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Dr. Habiba Lawal, said in a circular to the Chief of Staff to the President, National Assembly, service chiefs, heads of ministries and agencies, amongst others, that many of the MDAs have been doing the illegal recruitments ostensibly to replace members of the staff who had left the system, without following the due process.
The memo, titled “Streamlining procedures for recruitment into federal agencies” said inter alia: “”The attention of the President has been drawn to reports of massive and indiscriminate clandestine recruitments in federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in flagrant disregard of rules and established procedures for recruitment in the public service.
“Many MDAs have been carrying out recruitments in the guise of replacement of existing staff without following due process,” she claimed.
Rather than talking tough about sanctions, the acting SGF rolled out was she called guidelines to streamline the process and procedures for recruitment and appointment into the public service. These include: adherence to manpower budget for proposed recruitment, which must be approved by the supervising agency or ministry; obtaining of waiver to recruit from the office of the Head of Service of the Federation; appropriate budgetary provisions to accommodate the proposed recruitment and letter of clearance from the director-general of the budget office of the federation to confirm budgetary provision for the proposed recruitment.
Other guidelines include approval of Federal Character Commission for the distribution of vacancies for the proposed recruitment to ensure equitable distribution of vacancies; representation of the Federal Civil Service Commission as observers in the recruitment process in the ministries, representatives of the office of the head of service of the federation, in order to ensure compliance with extant rules and provision of recruitment.
If we may ask, is the problem that of lack of guidelines or of people who have just made up their minds to sideline the process? We say this because this is not the first time the Federal Government is raising the alarm over such recruitments. Indeed, the problem, like most Nigerian public service problems, has been with us for decades. As recently as 2013, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Federal Character, Ahmed Idris, said that his committee discovered that almost all federal agencies were involved in the malpractice. Indeed, he threatened that those involved would be prosecuted. That was under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency in which everything goes. With the expected change that the present government promised, we thought such a thing would have been eradicated or significantly reduced. But this cannot be in a situation where, instead of being sanctioned, those perpetrating the malpractice are merely being reminded to follow due process.
Yet, what they are doing has grave implications for the country’s unity as most of the cases are replete with allegations of favouritism and cronyism. Not only that, it has huge implications for the government’s wage bill, which, even as things stand, is mind-boggling. Worse still, such recruitments make nonsense of the many attempts to bring sanity into the government’s payroll.
It is high time government began to name and shame those involved in malpractices such as this. Corruption cannot be fought by keeping secret those perpetrating it.
