By Emeka Amaefula
“WE ARE INVESTIGATING OVER 1,500 CIVIL SERVANTS WITH FAKE EMPLOYMENT LETTERS” —DR. FOLASHADE YEMI-ESAN REVEALS
The outcome of the Service -Independent verification exercise carried out by Office of Head Of Service of the Federation concerning the employment status of officers recruited from 2013 to 2020 has revealed that there exist over 1, 500 Civil Servants with fake employment Letters Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan told her audience during the parley on Tuesday, 5th of April, 2022 at the National Policy Dialogue held at the Headquarters of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other related Offenses Commission -ICPC.
Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan in her Keynote address entitled “Entrenching Transparency in Public Service recruitment in Nigeria”, said “Following the outcome of the Service Independent Verification Exercise for Officers recruited from 2013 to 2020, led to the suspension of Salaries of over 3,000 Officers across Ministries, Departments and Agencies-MDAs those who failed to appear for the exercise pending further clearance.”
The Chairman of ICPC Professor Bolaji Owasanoye SAN, at the event admitted that his Commission is currently investigating over 100 petitions all centered on recruitment scams from victims, institutions and complicit individuals.
According to the Head of Service of the Federation, for the past one year over 1,000 Civil Servants with fake employment Letters were detected in one Ministry alone-“It would be recalled that in March last year, the office was informed of the detection of fake Letters of Employment presented in some Ministries. For instance, in the past year, in one Ministry alone, over 1,000 individuals bearing Fake Letters of Employment were detected. In the light of the aforementioned, it is disheartening to point out that the office recently received a report from the Federal Civil Service Commission forwarding the names of over 500 persons in various MDAs in possession of fake employment Letters of Appointment which are to be delisted from Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System-IPPS platform.
On the other hand, Prof. Owasaoye SAN, decried the impact of indiscriminate recruitment on the Nigerian budget as said “Indiscriminate recruitment has impacted budget such that government personnel wage bill has continued to rise geometrically almost doubling between 2015 and 2022 from N1.832trillion in 2015 to N3.494trillion in 2022.”
——Emeka Amaefula–+234(0)8111813069