The House of Representatives on Wednesday unveiled plans to investigate the alleged mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) amidst non-payment of salaries to some civil servants.
The resolution was passed sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Hon. Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun), who was the immediate past Chairman of the 9th House Committee on Public Accounts.
The House also called for an investigation of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) including Tertiary Institutions over mismanagement of personnel recruitment, employment and racketeering.
In his lead debate, Hon. Oke noted that the overheads of these public institutions constituted a major component of the Federal Government’s budget.
Some civil servants were yet to receive their June Salaries, some of the agencies affected include Radio Nigeria, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), National Population Commission (NPC), among others.
He however noted that unconfirmed reports suggested that the delay in the payment of salaries was a sequel to the claim that there was no money for the payment of June Salaries to all federal civil servants.
Meanwhile, it was gathered that as of June 4, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation had gotten more money to pay salaries for the month of June.
Hon. Oke who observed that employment in the federal public service remained a channel through which the Federal Government made social interventions, underscored the essence and the importance of managing the process of recruitment and payment of civil servants and public officers.
Hon. Oke alleged that the process of recruiting and employment into the civil service had become one that was fraught with endemic corruption, adding that public Institutions had since stopped the process of advertising for jobs and vacancies.
According to him, even in the few instances where adverts are published, the slots are already commoditised and available for the highest bidders.
He said most public institutions now sell employment positions, notwithstanding the qualification of the applicant and the ability of the applicant to perform optimally on the job.
He further said that this posed a major risk and had constituted itself into a channel for the underperformance of the Nigerian public service.
He noted that in spite of the decay occasioned, the Federal Government had tried to address other abuses within the system particularly, the menace of Ghost workers.
This according to him necessitated the introduction of IPPIS to help fish out the large number of ghost workers.
He added that in spite of this, some MDAs in collusion with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning have devised methods to insert ghost workers and get payments through back-door channels.
“They have also crafted methods that are being used to circumvent the BVN technology,” he said.
He said this state of affairs was costing the Federal Government billions of Naira monthly in salary payments to ghost workers and in illegal payments to several civil servants across cadres.
He said as things stand, the federal government was not getting value for money, rather it was losing both in quality, quantity and substance across recruitment and payment of personnel.
Hon. Oke said it was worrisome that some staff members that had been legitimately employed, had not received salaries for months and years, despite the fact that they were recruited legally into the Federal Civil Service.
He said if urgent steps were not taken to investigate these challenges, the morale of most civil servants would be completely dampened and the Federal Government would continue to lose billions in monthly payments to Glghost workers and illegal payment
He said the nation would continue to be serviced by unqualified workers trooping into various sectors within
the Federal Civil Service.
To this end, the House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the various MDAS, Parastatals and Tertiary Institutions concerning the above issues and report back within four weeks.
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