Following a query from the House of Representatives on why JAMB recruited 300 staff in eight years without advertising the vacancies, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has explained that it was due to the exigency of time and nature of its work.
The Chairman of the Adhoc committee investigating job racketeering in Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), Hon. Yussuf Gagdi, had queried the JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, over the recruitment exercise, noting that by not advertising the vacancies, ordinary Nigerians have been robbed of the opportunity to get employment.
In his opinion, recruiting about 300 staff through waiver was against the federal character, adding that a waiver is to be granted only if an agency is collapsing.
“What makes you think advertising wouldn’t have been better? You have the capacity to screen the people that apply to get better hands to do those jobs. I’m asking this because we are most interested in correcting the fraud associated with waivers”.
In his response, Oloyede, said the board followed the federal character principles in the job recruitment exercise it conducted for the eight years under review.
The Board, he said, got waivers from the relevant agencies to employ staff to replace those that had left, adding that the board had five sets of recruitment in the period under review.
The Registrar, said that it was due to exigencies of duty, adding they had about twelve to thirteen centres coming on board and needed people to man them.
“We used the waiver because we believe the exigency of the time and the nature of our work deserves it. If we are to advertise for the three hundred, we wouldn’t be able to meet up with what we needed them for”.
“I believe very strongly that it was very very necessary at that time that we recruited and I assure you that we did not shortcharge those who are qualified”.