The Niger Delta Integrity Group has called on the Federal Government to ensure that absolute transparency is brought to bare in the ongoing personnel in the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
The personnel audit is part of recommendations of a forensic audit of the NDDC ordered by President Mohammadu Buhari to reform the Commission.
A spokesperson for the group, Mr. Tarilate Alabo, said the personnel audit when completed will go a long way in sanitizing the agency and reposition it for effective service delivery while also boosting the morale of staff of the Commission.
The group however frowned at cases where the presidential directive for the personnel audit is ignored by some staff of the NDDC who in flagrant disobedient to a presidential order, refuse to appear before the panel carrying out the staff audit, stating that any staff who boycotts the audit is simply confirming that he or she was not duely employed in the first place, reasoning that no staff who has nothing to hide would evade a personnel audit.
“By the provisions of the Federal Government Public Service Rules, PSR 020101, only the Federal Civil Service Commission has the power to make appointments to post graded Grade Level 12 – 17 in the Public Service. Again, the Federal Government through the Federal Civil Service Commission in a Circular with Ref No. FCSC/CHMN/CL/17/VOL .1/36 of 22nd October, 2013 had declared ‘proper placement in the Public Service’ as an aberration in the Public Service, since no reference to such a term is traceable to any Public Service Rules, Regulations and Guidelines. So, I don’t know where some people got their own powers to appoint people as they like in NDDC and made them Directors in less than four months, except they got a waiver from the President, else they have violated due process and should explain themselves to the panel”.
“That you were employed into NDDC through political influence is not a crime. However, it is against the Public Service Rule and every relevant principles guiding the Civil Service to employ someone with no prior work experience and after few months, the person is made a Director. Come and show how you became a Director in NDDC after just four months on the job, you start running away from the office. This is the impunity which prevailed in the Commission that President Muhammadu Buhari is working hard to stamp out”, he stated.
