Mohammed Shosanya
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB,says it recruited three hundred new staff between 2015 till date without advertising due to exigencies of duty.
The Registrar of the Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede,disclosed this while appearing at the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee To Investigate Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies ( MDAs) Parastatals and Tertiary Institutions On Mismanagement Personnel Recruitment, Employment Racketeering and Gross Mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, (IPPIS), in Abuja.
He said:”We used the waiver because we believe the exigency of the time and the nature of our work deserves it. We are to advertise for the three hundred, we wouldn’t be able to meet up with what we needed them for”.
He also said that JAMB had about twelve to thirteen centres coming on board and they needed people to man them.
He added:”I believe very strongly that it was very very necessary at that time that we recruited and I assure that did not, and we did not surcharge those who are qualified”.
He hinted that the agency followed the Federal Character Principles in the job recruitment exercise in the agency from 2015 till date.
He said that the Board had sorted and got waiver from the relevant agencies to employ staff to replace those that had left.
Responding to questions from the Committee members,Professor Oloyede said that the board had five sets of recruitment from 2015 to date.
The Chairman of the Ad-hoc committee, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, said that that JAMB can not be exonerated for not advertising vacancies.
He said that by not advertising the vacancy, ordinary Nigerians have been robbed of the opportunity to get employment.
” What makes you think advertising thing wouldn’t have been better? You have the capacity to screen the people that apply to get better hands to do those jobs. I’m asking this because we are most interested in correcting the fraud associated with waivers”. Gagdi said.
He said that recruiting about three hundred staff through waiver was against the federal character.
He noted that waivers was to be granted only if anyone agency was collapsing.