The Presidency says it is “cleaning up” the list of board appointments in order to be satisfied that the appointees meet the requirements of the Acts establishing agencies and parastatals.

This, according to the Presidency, explains why many of the 209 board chairmen and 1,258 members on the list of appointments released late last December have not been inaugurated.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, disclosed this in an interview with our reporter.

Shehu stated that the clean-up exercise was being anchored by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha.

The presidential spokesman said the exercise became necessary in lieu of the outrage that trailed the inclusion of dead persons on the list of appointments.

According to him, the list in 11 ministries, departments and agencies, including those in the Office of the Vice President and the Office of the SGF, has been cleaned up and is ready for inauguration.

Shehu said the SGF would by Saturday (yesterday) clean up the list in the remaining ministries “and forward to them (the ministries) to inaugurate at their own time.”

The presidential aide noted that some ministries, particularly that of the Federal Capital Territory, have started inaugurating their board appointees.

Shehu also said that ministries, departments and agencies which were not captured in the initial list would equally be “fixed” and be ready before the end of this month.

He stated: “So far, they have cleaned up the list of 11 ministries, departments and parastatals of government, including those under the Office of the Vice President and the Office of the SGF. Between today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday), the SGF will clean up the remaining. Once this list is cleaned – because some (appointees) are dead – once the SGF is satisfied that the requirements of the laws establishing those agencies are met by the appointees, who have been put forward, they (SGF Office) will release to the ministries to go and inaugurate.

“There are some ministries that are not covered by the earlier release. Those ones will also be completed. The SGF is working to ensure that the entire board processes are completed by the end of this month.”

Asked to give an insight into the details of the cleaning up exercise, Shehu responded thus: “When the list was released, there was an outrage. The list will be vetted to make sure that the requirement of the law is met, because the law would say appoint so, so and so person of this kind of background, representation of so, so and so number of women, civil society so that the requirement of the law is met as far as the Acts establishing those agencies are concerned. (Daily Trust)

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