By FEMI OGUNSHOLA

The House of Representatives has vowed to abolish waivers in recruitment exercises in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.

The lawmakers described the waiver as an abuse of recruitment processes with alleged nepotism and favouritism taking the centre stage.

Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, Chairman, Ad hoc Committee on Job Racketeering and Mismanagement of IPPIS, said this when the Provost, National Post-Graduate Medical College (NPGMC) appeared before the committee in Abuja on Monday.

He said that MDAs had abused the waiver policy, adding that any MDA that grants waivers in its recruitment exercise is not doing the country any good.

He said that any recruitment that would not follow due process by advertising such on the pages of national dailies would no longer be tolerated.

“We will abolish the use of waivers; it is not for the good of this country, a waiver is subject to abuse.

“Chief Executive Officers, directors and others have abused the use of waiver by employing cronies, family members and those in their good books.

“Recruitment in MDAs should henceforth be advertised; any recruitment without the advertisement of same is unjustifiable,” he said.

Gagdi called on MDAs to respect federal character in carrying out recruitment exercises to enable participation across board and to encourage fairness, justice and equity.

He described the action of NPGMC which engaged in selective recruitment without considering others as unjustifiable.

“Your action is unjustifiable; you have not respected the federal character. Your nominal roll keeps increasing while staff keep retiring.

“On your organisation’s recruitment list, Borno, Yobe, and Plateau are not represented.

“In your recruitment in 2021, you did not know that Sokoto, Borno, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi among others have zero representation,” the chairman said.

Gagdi therefore queried why the recruitments carried out were not shared among the states with zero representation.

Speaking, Prof. Fatiu Arogundade, Registrar, NPGMC, apologised to the committee promising that all anomalies in the previous recruitments as noted by the lawmakers would be corrected.

“It is not that the college has not involved the people of the North-East. We apologise and will correct the anomaly in subsequent recruitments,” he said.

Rep. Jaha Babao (APC-Borno), a member of the committee condemned what he called the lop-sidedness and exclusion of Borno and other north eastern states in the college recruitments. (NAN)

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