Federal character commissioners sell job slots – Boss
The Acting Executive Chairman of the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Dr Shetima Bukar Abba told bemused lawmakers at the Senate on Thursday that some of the 37 commissioners of the commission were indeed, indulging in job racketeering.
He admitted that the action by the job racketeers in the Federal Character Commission amounted to act of sabotage to the agency.
Abba told Senators that many of the state governors were no longer interested in giving the commission required parcel of land for construction of state offices owing to their disappointment with the operations.
The FCC boss owned up to the disturbing fact when confronted on it by members of the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs during a budget defence session.
He revealed further that the commissioners, who engaged in the act, are those who are far away from people they supposed to represent in the commission by not visiting their home states as required on monthly basis and update relevant stakeholders there on employments slots for their states.
“After being given available slots of employment gotten from any of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS) for their respective state, the commission expects each one of them to take such slots home and distribute evenly among the various peoples there in collaboration with other stakeholders.
“But the unfortunate reports often received by us is that such slots were not made known to stakeholder in the state let alone, allowing even distribution, leading credence to existence of act of sabotage within”, he said .
According to him, the unfortunate conducts of some of the commissioners on job racketeering had made many of the State Governors approached for land for construction of state offices for the commission not to show interest in granting the request.
He listed the governments of Kaduna, Enugu, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi and others as part of those who have not been reckoning with the requests by the Commission for landed property in their respective states.
A worrisome development he added, making the commission’ staffers at the affected States to be squatting in Federal Secretariat apartment at state level.
During cross examination, the Committee Chairman, Senator Tijani Yahaya Kaura ( APC Zamfara North ) and members disclosed also that some of the commissioners were in the habit of selling high profile job slots given to them for eligible applicants in their various states to people outside the states.
The committee chairman, however, directed the FCC boss to get prepared for re-appearance before it along with all the state commissioners on the need to stop the alleged acts of sabotage within.
It also directed it to focus on the second layer of its responsibilities on attaining even development across the country by monitoring, the ratio of project implementation across the six zones of the federation by the federal government.
Olufemi Samuel, Abuja
