No fewer than 35 Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies of government on Tuesday in Abuja failed to appear before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating alleged job racketeering.

Rep Yusuf Gagdi, chairman of the committee probing employment racketeering and gross mismanagement of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), said most agencies did not respect constituted authority.

“Most of these agencies are not respectful of constituted authority,” said Mr Gagdi. “We are supposed to have the presence of 40 agencies, but only four are here.”

The chairman also read the riot act against some of the agencies earlier told to provide staff to serve as desk officers in the committee in a bid to provide necessary information when requested but failed.

Mr Gagdi had earlier asked the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Budget Office, IPPIS and the Federal Character Commission to provide the desk officer that would be in the committee to give requisite information.’’

After the agencies failed to provide the desk officers, the committee chairman ordered that their directors should henceforth come to provide the information needed instead of the desk officers.

“If the desk officers of the head of service, budget office, and IPPIS are not here, then we should summon their directors to come and sit here so we can do the work together, ” he said.

Five agencies that appeared before the committee are the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, the National Teachers Institute, the National Commission for Colleges of Education and the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria, among others.

Mr Gagdi berated agencies for applying for a waiver for the recruitment without advertising the same, adding that such were usually used to perpetrate fraud.

He noted that instead of engaging 100 staff as stipulated by the law guiding waiver on recruitment, some agencies recruited as many as 150, going beyond the limit.

While answering questions on recruitment, Josiah Ajiboye, the registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, said in 2018, 122 people had been recruited since he became the registrar in 2016.

“We got approval to recruit 122 with budget approval and waiver from the head of Service of the federation,” he said.

Paulinus Chijioke, registrar of the National Commission for Colleges of Education, said the total strength of the commission was 280. He sought approval to employ more staff.

(NAN)