Employment Scam: We Want People With Evidence To Bring Them – Sen. Kuta

Senator Dahiru Awaisu Kuta is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Character Commission and Inter-governmental Affairs. Ruth Choji spoke to him on the outcome of his committee’s findings from the investigation carried out on employment scams against some ministries, MDAs and extra ministerial departments.
Your committee was mandated to investigate the employment irregularities in Immigration and other MDAs. What was the outcome of the investigation?
I cannot answer that question as such but the issue of  employment iregularities in Immigration Service was just one out of so many typical examples of employment irregularities. It is the issue of lopsidedness in employment in many parastatals that was tilted towards some particular geo-political zone. This is because the geo political zones are represented by a particular person. The senate took a resolution that apart from the immediate area of concentration which is the Immigration, Custom and others, so many other establishment are similarly guilty and in order to do justice, the senate resolved some times ago that the Committee on Federal Character should investigate recent employment into federal establishments with particular emphasis on the last two years.   In the recent employment, certain candidates,  out of desperation, were made to pay certain amount of money to get employment. This is what we are working on and we have gone almost half way. We have done is on about 104 establishment right now, including those ones that were of apparent concern, but we are yet to come out with any recommendation. We are still on it because we have well over 300 parastatals. Our mandate is for those employments that took place between 2011-12. We might submit an interim report to the senate or else we will continue within the time frame, else we will ask the senate to give us more time.

Is there any law in place that will prosecute those found guilty of these irregularities?
We have not been able to get people who have agreed that they actually paid money to individuals. The ones we have got are people who have paid money to syndicates with the connivance of some first generation banks who are used to opening accounts for the fraudsters and then people are asked to go and pay some amount of money in order to process their applications. Many have been duped, some have submitted their applications on line and have paid their money through this account. We are trying to see if it is possible for us to get all these accounts, but we have not succeeded yet.

How did Nigeria degenerate to this level and who is to blame for this short fall?
The problem we have is that the level of employment has reached an alarming stage. One agency advertise that it was looking for 1,500 candidates and the application it got was over one million. Another federal ministry that was looking for only 74 candidates got 400,000 application letters. So, we are sitting on a time bomb because virtually half of the youths are unemployed. There is a lot of burden in our hands. That is the reason when there are vacancies, people become desperate and harass their parents to get money to pay their ways through. What we are happy about is that, as much as possible, some of these parastals have tried to flush out those who came through the back door, that is not to say there is not much to be desired, we still think that a lot has been swept under the carpet and we want to see if we can unearth this type of thing. Our problem is that, people who pay their ways through are also guilty, because the giver is ready to give information, but people will tell them, ‘you that gave is also guilty’ and when we say we will protect you, they will ask them, ‘how are we going to protect them against the law’ and that is why we are finding it increasingly difficult to get people to come out and admit that they paid their way to get jobs. We have one case, but we still have not succeeded in getting the right type of information we need from him, but we learnt that one person is in detention; he was with the police pension board but was using his link to get employment for people with the customs. I think the customs have been able to flush this people out, but we are still following the case.

Some are of the opinion that since the federal character is not working, it should be scrapped, what is your take on this?
I don’t think it is true, federal character is beginning to work; it is because it cannot get the type of support it needs that people feel it cannot bite. Section 15 of the law establishing the Federal Character Commission says that they have the right to go to court. They can take any minister or parastatal to court because it is set out in that law. Unfortunately, the commission is not getting the necessary funds to be able to execute these cases. If they take a ministry to court, where is the money to pursue the judgment?  In situation where legal services is allocated only N2m, how do they sustain or pursue the case when the defendant can hire a Senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN)? What people don’t know is that, the act also makes for the rot in social amenities, they have a right to find out why more roads are in one geo-political zone more than others. But the problem is that they don’t even have the vehicles to move round. They don’t have more than three serviceable vehicles in the pools now, so it requires more support from the government. We have tried to see if there are ways we can give those more funds, it is just that this envelope approach is causing problems because you won’t know what is inside until you open it

Do you think this administration is capable of creating jobs for millions of Nigerian youths that are jobless?
It is very difficult, I don’t think we are serious about this. I think the government lacks the will to create jobs. In situation where personal emolument has taken over most of the budget, the capital projects take a quarter of the total budget, it is only when you are able to execute capital projects that you create jobs. Government must fix power, once this is done, other things will follow. It is sad that in spite of all the billions that have been spent to get power, we cannot get more than 4000 watts of electricity. South Africa with just about fifty million people is generating  47,000 megawatts of electricity. Iran with only seventy-five million people is generating sixty thousand megawatts of electricity  and it required only forty thousand megawatts, so the remaining megawatts is for export. Go to Brazil with well over two hundred million people, they have over a hundred thousand megawatts of electricity. Most of them have spent almost the same amount of money we have spent and yet we have only 4000 megawatts. We have three hydro dams in the country at full generating capacity They are supposed to generate 1960 mega watts of electricity now. But because of lack of proper turn around maintenance, all of them put together cannot generate half of that. If we have power, people having grinding machine, vulcanizers and others will have jobs that have anything to do with electricity. Most of our industries have folded up because 50 percent of their revenue is spent on diesel for alternative source of electricity.
So, once we get power right, we can create jobs. Look at the Niger-Delta, what we required that time was to be able to get about 10,000 people turning out as welders. If they come out as welders, where do they get light to work? Many of them have been sent to South Africa to go and learn welding jobs where there is light, but when they come back here, how do they practice? So, we can create jobs, but government t lacks the will. First and foremost, we must fight corruption and other things will follow. Personal interest is diverting most of the funds to private pockets. Most of the federal roads in this country have collapsed, day in, day out, and people are losing their lives. Why can’t we allocate substantial amount of money to fix our roads? At the way things are, Nigerians are just dying like rats, one small accident, many people will die. It is not difficult to get things right.  We can create jobs through tourism, once there is power, our hostels and other sites will be well developed. Tourism is the highest employer of labour in the world, it is said that up to  100m people are employed in the tourism sector alone in Africa, so if we can get it right, and we have natural sites all over the country, we can tap into this and create jobs.

Do you think the SURE-P programme is working?
I have not seen the impact yet, what I am afraid of is that, people are beginning to scramble for appointment as SURE- P agents or coordinators. Once Nigerians begin to do that, then it shows that there is a lot of benefit and at the end, it will be mismanaged because any state you go to now, the moment you get appointment as coordinator, they throw a party for you or reception for you.
Once you are a coordinator for NAPEP, MDG and the rest, they throw a party for you that you have made it in life, so the key problem here is corruption. People now see it as another conduit pipe. Even if there is a good board of trustees, they are there at the top, they won’t know what is happening on the ground. But we don’t need to give up hope.

But don’t you think this is an indictment of the PDP which has ruled the country for almost thirteen years now?
We are talking about mismanagement that led to corruption. PDP inherited a terrible situation. The seed of corruption was sown long before now, even before the colonial masters, it became worst with the intervention of the military where there was no accountability and transparency. I respect Murtala Muhammad a lot, but he was overzealous and desperate to fight corruption and at the end, he was consumed in it. The moment there was a general purge in the civil service in 1975, it became clear to civil servants particularly permanent secretaries that their jobs were no longer permanent and therefore they were ready to make money before they retire.
The civil servants now know that there is no longer job security, unfortunately when politicians came, they didn’t do anything to stem  the tide, it became so overwhelmed in the society and today, corruption is part of our lives. If you don’t indulge in it, the society sees you as somebody who is not ready to assist them. Another thing is our way of living. We like to show off and this has made those coming up to want to copy. A civil servant wants good life too and he cuts corners to buy generator to have light in the house because he has been managing the 4000 megawatts. So, it not a PDP matter alone. It is also prevalent in employment; anytime somebody is appointed, he will make sure he promotes and employ all his people and at the end of ten years, you will discover that most directors in the same agency are from the same place.

Talking about the PDP, there has been so much wrangling in the party with   rumours that the chairman will be removed by some forces, what are really the issues?
Bamanga Tukur is an upright man. We started the party together along with him, Sunday Awoniyi, solomon Lar and Gemade. I was their secretary. We worked hard to put the party together. He means well for the party. Most of those fighting him today are those who joined the party recently; they might have their reasons, but at the same time, he wants the best for the party.
The conflict that has been created  is that the authority of the party should reside with the chairman and the secretary like it happened in the NPN days. But once you say the president is the leader of the party and the governors is the state leader, then this conflict will continue. Why should they be leaders of the party? As long as we have this problem, the clashes will continue.
Agent