NPC staff insists on DG’s removal

Members of Staff Union of the National Population Commission (NPC) have demanded for the sack of the Director General of the Commission, Dr. Ghaji Bello for incompetence and financial misconduct.

The demand was contained in a petition addressed to the President, Muhammadu Buhari and signed by the management staff of the Commission.

In the petition which was disclosed to Daily Times, the staff union stated that the Director General violated all civil service rules in the Commission and Public Procurement Act.

The staff also alleged that he reneged from the agreement reached with the Union in January which was midwifed by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in the presence of other stakeholders.

According to the Union, the agreements were: “That with the paucity of funds in the Commission, due to the prevalent economic situation, the Commission will commence the process of clearing the backlog of outstanding staff allowance within the realms of the overhead in the first quarter.

“That the Commission is to look for Programmes in the capital vote of NPC to collectively address the issue of staff training as part of capacity building within the first quarter of this year; that only approved allowances specified in the Public Service Rules (PSR) would be paid to Board Members and staff of the NPC.

“That all critical issues to financial misappropriation would be investigated by appropriate government agencies; and that a time frame of sixty days is given to both parties to monitor the implementation of the Agreement after which the meeting will reconvene to report progress and many other agreements”.

In the petition to the President, NPC staff Union alleged that the funds released to the Commission to carry out Enumeration activities for the proposed 2018 National Census were diverted to the award of contract for renovation of 7 Data Processing Centers (DPCs), just as they alleged that “Dr. Bello, is the most incompetent Director General, the Commission had witnessed since inception.”

The Daily Times recalls that the Union had put its protest on hold in January this year where they earlier demanded for the removal of the DG.

The President of the Workers’ Union, Mrs. Rita Agada, who was a signatory to the petition, explained that the strike was put on hold following intervention of the National Presidents of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress.

However, all attempts made to have the reactions of the Director General of NPC on the allegations made against by the Union proved abortive as the DG refused to pick his calls or responded to the text message sent to him.

Also the Director of Public Affairs Department (PAD) was not reachable as several attempts made to communicate with him were not responded.