ICPC indicts Labour Ministry, UCH over padding of nominal rolls

By FEMI OGUNSHOLA

ICPC Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasannoye, on Thursday in Abuja indicted the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, for padding their nominal rolls.

Owasannoye gave the indictment at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-corruption and Public Service Matters.

The hearing was organised to investigate high level of corruption in nominal rolls of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The ICPC chairman said so far the Ministry of Labour and the UCH had been found culpable of padding their nominal rolls.

Owasannoye said the ICPC was investigating the nominal rolls of the Ministries of Labour and Employment, Health, Interior, Information and Culture and the University College Hospital, Ibadan.

“Interior ministry did not do any recruitment. We have not finished with the Ministry of Health. Labour and UCH were implicated definitely,’’ he said.

He said the investigation of the ministries and agencies was at the behest of the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.

Also, at the hearing, chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, called for more funding to be able to monitor the personnel budgets of MDAs.

Nta charged that many agencies assigned salaries and non-regular allowances to themselves without recourse to the Commission.

He said also that the Commission carried out salary inspections every year to selected MDAs, but this was inadequate as it should be done more frequently.

According to him, the Commission needs to begin to look at the processes of paying for monitoring personnel.

“Last year, the Commission had N24 million to monitor personnel budgets that runs into trillions of Naira.

“You cannot go round the country with that kind of money. 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 situation where the Commission gets N24 million, I calculated that we need about N184 million minimum to go round and then work on the electronic platforms,’’ he said.

Nta added that the commission needed to do a bit more monitoring of personnel budgets the way it monitored capital budgets and overheads.

He said also that agencies involved in the monitoring should be given more funds to carry out routine monitoring, adding that it should not wait till the end of the year.

“If funds from such padding were saved for tertiary education and health sectors and judiciously managed, we would not be having all these unnecessary strikes going on,’’ he said.

Acting Chairman of the committee, Rep. Musa Bago, expressed the commitment of the House to ensure that the issue of padding of nominal rolls was addressed. (NAN)