The House of Representatives on Wednesday set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate likely mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) over non-payment of some civil servants salaries and report back within four weeks.
This was disclosed in respect 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 investigation into Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) including Tertiary Institutions over inept staff recruitment racketeering.
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.
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.
He 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.
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.
