THE Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Ishaq Oloyede, has come under fire following a probe by The House of Representatives ad-hoc Committee probing job racketeering by Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System IPPIS.
The probe began, on Monday, with the Reps looking into the controversial employment of 300 staff members without any publicly advertised job vacancies.
The probe panel presided over by Yusuf Gagdi put it to JAMB that it had denied Nigerians the chance to apply for the aforementioned jobs when the vacancies were open.
The Gagdi-led panel mandated JAMB to submit to it the list of all individuals employed between the years 2015 – 2023.
According to Gagdi, documents before the panel proves that JAMB’s shortlisting and interview of job seekers, as well as job recruiting, did not follow due process.
Gagdi notes that JAMB simply used waivers for recruiting staff, in disregard to the clear stipulations of the law on the non engagement of more than 100 staff yearly.
While pointing out that a waiver only becomes necessary if an agency is on the brink of collapse, Gagdi held that the recruitment of 300 people using waiver goes against the federal character principle.
“What makes you think advertising wouldn’t have been better? You have the capacity to screen the people that apply to get better hands to do those jobs. I am asking this because we are most interested in correcting the fraud associated with waivers,” Gagdi said.
In his response, the Registrar of the agency, Prof. Oloyede, opined that the actions of the agency was not in violation of the federal character principle in the job recruitment exercise it conducted from 2015 till present day.
According to him, JAMB secured waiver from the relevant agencies to fill existing vacancies, explaining further that, in the period under review, the board had five sets of recruitment.
“We used the waiver because we believe the exigency of the time and the nature of our work deserved it.
“If we were to advertise for the 300, we wouldn’t have been able to meet up with what we needed them for.
“I believe very strongly that it was very necessary at that time that we recruited and I assure you that we did not surcharge those who were qualified,” Oloyede explained.
Oloyede stated that state governors were duly consulted during the job recruitment process and that the perceived unfair recruitment was borne out of the need to fill job vacancies in its over 40 offices all across the country.
Gagdi, in his ruling, gave the body four weeks ultimatum to submit to it, the nominal roll of its staff recruited from 2015-2023 in tabular form on a state by state basis.