Job Racketeering: Reps Give IPPIS Boss, Others 24-hour Deadline

House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on Job Racketeering has summoned the director of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and Accountant General of the Federation to appear before it on today or face the wrath of the parliament.

The committee also invited the former IPPIS desk officer at the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Haruna Kolo, and his current employer, Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to show up at the hearing unfailingly.

The chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, who issued the summons at the resumed hearing of the panel yesterday, said the lawmakers will exercise their constitutional powers on Kolo and any other agencies that fail to appear before it on the appointed day.

Kolo had appeared before the panel on Monday where he told lawmakers that he had been collecting between N1 million to N1.5 million for the FCC chairman, Muheeba Dankaka, from individual applicants before he left the commission.

The committee directed him to return on Tuesday for further interrogation but he failed to appear, even on Wednesday.

This was as the driver and personal assistant to the Taraba State FCC commissioner, Abdulraman Ibrahim, who appeared before the committee on Wednesday denied being part of those that were employed in 2022 as alleged by Kolo.

Ibrahim said, “I came to FCC in 2022 with the Taraba State commissioner. The Commissioner pays me from his personal salary and I was not employed alongside those that were employed in 2022.”

The committee chairman, in his intervention, insisted that Kolo must appear unfailingly to substantiate the allegations against him just as the agencies that are critical to the ongoing probe.

Gagdi said, “The committee is in a dilemma why the IPPIS is absconding from the sitting. The Desk Officers of IPPIS Head of Service and Budget Office, why are they absconding? We have interacted with the Accountant General of the Federation and demanded that the IPPIS should post two persons here.

“The IPPIS that they are capturing, why was Kolo so comfortable to take people at will to the IPPIS office for capture? The clerk summoned the Accountant General and the Director of the IPPIS to be here tomorrow at 10am. I don’t know why they are running away.

“Secondly, we are equally confused but we have a solution as to why Kolo would come here. He got a notice for 12 o’clock and at one o’clock he is in this hall. Only for us to ask him to return yesterday and to ask him to be here today and he absconded. I will sign a letter officially to AMCON to produce Kolo tomorrow by 10 am. At least we have given the benefit of the doubt twice.

“Clerk, call AMCON on the phone and send a text to AMCON, let them come here with Kolo. AMCON is supposed to appear before us today. Why are they not appearing? Do they know something about what Kolo is doing and why they admitted him to AMCON?

“AMCON should come. Kolo should appear tomorrow otherwise we would exercise our constitutional powers on Kolo and any other agencies that fail to appear before this committee from tomorrow”.

Meanwhile, the committee’s chairman has called on the federal government to scrap waivers for employment as Ministries, Departments and Departments (MDAs) were committing fraud with them through bypassing public advertisement for jobs.

This was just as the acting director general of Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Sunday Olaide, who appeared before the lawmakers said the agency obtained a waiver to bypass employment advertisements.

In swift response, Gagdi said, “Waiver is a fraud pending our recommendation from the House of Representatives because agencies are hiding under waiver to recruit their family members, friends, those that give them money to sell slots, etcetera.

“No agency has any reason not to advertise vacancies for recruitment. But every agency does not want to advertise. Why? You recruit 100, 200, 300, 900, 1000, splitting it into three instalments without going to the public to tell Nigerians that they have vacancies and are inviting qualified Nigerians to apply for such things.

“So, take it or leave it, agencies are hiding under waivers to perpetuate employment racketeering and other employment related fraud. That is our position, because there is no agency that would appear here that would not give you a certificate of waiver. Most of the agencies would not bring even a one page advert in any national daily for its recruitment. So it is a fraud”.

A member of the committee, Hon Amobi Godwin Ogar (APC, Abia), also said government agencies were deliberately seeking waivers to corrupt the proper process of employment.

He said: “From the report that you have submitted on the request for waiver, I noticed that not only your agency, but the majority of the agencies use this waiver on advertisement to cause this employment racketeering.

“For me I think it is deliberate. So, I want to ask your commission, why refusing to comply with the set up rule to advertise recruitment in respect of the right of applicants. This will promote maximum participation and provision of a wider scope for the selection of the best”.