Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, on Thursday, alleged that the Federal Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity, and the University College Hospital Ibadan padded their nominal rolls.
This is just as Chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, called for more funding to monitor the personnel budget of ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
Owasanoye and Nta spoke at an investigative hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committees on Anti-Corruption and Public Service Matters on the high level of corruption in the nominal rolls of MDAs.
Owasanoye said the ICPC was already investigating MDAs and their nominal rolls on the request of the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.
The ICPC boss disclosed that the MDAs agencies under investigation include the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Interior; the Ministry of Information and Culture; and the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
He said so far, the Ministry of Labour and the UCH had been found culpable of padding their nominal rolls.
“They were referred to us by the HoS. Interior did not do any recruitment. We have not finished with Health. But Labour and UCH were definitely implicated. Those two were definitely implicated,” Owasanoye stated.
Also, Nta also told the committee that several MDAs assign salaries and non-regular allowances to themselves without recourse to the NSIWC.
He said, “The Commission carries out salary inspections every year to selected MDAs but this was inadequate as it should be done more frequently. We need to begin to look at the processes of paying for monitoring personnel. Last year, my Commission had N24m to monitor personnel budgets that run into trillions. You cannot go round the country with that kind of sum.
“If we can get 0.005 per cent of the budget, most of the issues we are looking at here would have been substantially addressed. In a place where I am getting N24m, what I calculated was that we need about N184m minimum to have gone round and then work on the electronic platforms.
“We need to do a bit more monitoring of the personnel budget the way we monitor capital budgets and overheads. So those agencies involved in the monitoring should be given more funds to carry out routine monitoring. We should not wait till the end of the year.”
Nta stressed that if funds from such padding were saved in the tertiary education and health sectors and they were judiciously managed, “we will not be having all these unnecessary strikes going on.”
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