A member of the House of Representatives has said that there are over 120,000 job vacancies in the federal public service because of President Muhammadu Buhari’s embargo on employment .
Rep Sani Bala Tsanyawa, who is the chairman of House Committee on Public Service Matters, disclosed this in an interview with BBC Hausa.
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He said the president informed the lawmakers of the embargo since 2019 when he visited the National Assembly for budget presentation.
According to him, “During budget presentation by the president at the assembly, that was when he said that he had placed an embargo on employment into the mainstream civil service.”
Tsanyawa said since the embargo, no employment had taken place in such federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). He however said some critical agencies were exempted.
He listed the exempted agencies to include security and health sector, due to the covid-19 outbreak.
“Our investigations have shown that 130,000 workers left the federal public service in the last five years. Some died, some retired, while some switched to the private sector,” he said.
Tsanyawa added that since the embargo, only 6,700 were employed by the federal government. He said the vacancies are increasing because some workers are dying while some are retiring, but the embargo remained.
He however said some agencies sometimes recruit, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), but not in the core ministries.
Rep Tsanyawa said his committee has been working to ensure the lifting of the embargo but it is still there.
“As the chairman of the public service committee, and other members of the committee, we have tabled motions on the need to lift the embargo,” he said.
Bala Tsanyawa said they have also summoned the officials of the Federal Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) in that regard. Both however maintained that only the president can lift the embargo.
Dateline Nigeria reports that the Senate, in November, accused some officials of the federal civil service of engaging in secret recruitment, even as it challenged heads of the various federal ministries and agencies to provide evidence that there was an official circular, placing an embargo on employment.
