Abuja – The Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, on NIS recruitment aimed at achieving transparency, efficiency, says Minister Thursday said that the decision of the ministry to engage a consultant for its recruitment exercise was in accordance with legal workings of government.

Moro made this known in Abuja at the public hearing of the Senate Committee on Interior investigating the tragic recruitment exercise of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) on March 15.

He said that the decision was jointly taken by the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Board (CDFIPB).

The minister said that the Federal Character Commission (FCC) accepted that the NIS electronic recruitment (e-recruitment) conformed to the recruitment procedures of the commission.

He said FCC made its position known in response to the ministry’s letter to it seeking its opinion on the legality or otherwise of engaging a consultant and charging processing fees.

Moro said that the FCC advised that in the event of a candidate being required to buy a scratch card, the cost should not be more than N1, 000.

“The ministry wrote to the Federal Character Commission to ascertain if the ministry and the board were within appropriate legal workings of government.

“The Federal Character Commission responded in the affirmative and considered it in line with the provisions of the recruitment procedures issued by the commission.

“The commission clearly stated that the e-recruitment online application idea was acceptable to it, but advised that applicants who submitted hard copies of applications should also be considered,’’ he said.

Moro said that a total of 710, 110 applications were received at the close of the e-recruitment portal, while 522,652 were short listed for the aptitude test and physical examination.

He said that the e-recruitment exercise was aimed at achieving transparency and efficiency in the conduct of recruitment into the services and not for purpose of earning profit for the ministry.

“For the avoidance of doubt, neither the ministry and the board, nor the Nigerian Immigration Service, was involved in the collection and custody of the processing/technology fees of the application process.

“This e-recruitment platform has also been in use by other services, the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Air Force, Federal Road Safety Commission and the National drug Law enforcement Agency,” he said.

The minister, while regretting the unfortunate incident which resulted in the death of 16 applicants, said he was accepting responsibility for the tragic outcome of the recruitment exercise.

“The loss of these young Nigerians, who are needed as a critical human resource factor for nation building is most regrettable.

“As the Minister of Interior, under whose purview this unfortunate exercise took place, I cannot abdicate my responsibility. The buck stops at my table.”

The Secretary to the CDFIPB, Mr Sylvanus Tapgun, told the committee that the power to recruit officers on Grade Level 8 and above lies with the board, while the NIS had the powers to recruit levels 1 to 7.

Tapgun said that the board had suggested a postponement or staggering of the exercise for convenience, but that the minister insisted it should go ahead because the March 15 date had already been announced.

In his submission, the NIS Comptroller-General, Mr David Parradang, told the committee that he was not duly informed about the exercise until when the minister mentioned it during the budget defence.

Parradang also said that he was not in a position to stop the exercise because “we were not the drivers of this process at all.

“So, the decision to stop it would never have come from me. I was not the driver of this process and my position had been very clear on this,” he said.

Mr Theodore Maiyaki, the Secretary and Legal Adviser to Drexel Technologies Limited, said it realised N710 million out of which it spent N98 million on the projects and paid the bank N250 million. (NAN)