There is palpable tension at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) following reports of underground illegal recruitment of about 300 staff by the interim Management team. The on-going exercise which is allegedly being master-minded by Senator Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, is in violation of the NDDC Act in ratio of Oil production quota and without recourse to due process which include approval by a subsisting board and advertisement of vacancies, open positions, etc.
Shocked and terribly disappointed top bureaucrats in the NDDC, wondered why Senator Akpabio and the Interim Management team should embark on” this clandestine , illegal and spurious recruitment exercise knowing fully well that a Board and Management Team would soon be in place and they are the ones statutorily vested with the authority to recruit, after a thorough audit of personnel in line with due process and the NDDC Act”, stressing that they will resist the illegality at all cost.
Sources within NDDC confided in The New Diplomat that the recruiting team hurriedly raised by the NDDC interim Management are allegedly working from a hotel located at 20 Amaechi Drive, GRA. The hotel which is called Royal Vantage is allegedly owned by Mr Mene Derek, a former Executive Director of Finance and Administration at NDDC. A top NDDC Director told our reporter: ‘’ As I speak to you, they are working from this hotel, issuing recruitment letters illegally by Human Resources Department. They are employing over 300 staff into the NDDC without recourse to due process which include Advertisement of vacancies, open positions, created by promotion and movement of staff(e.g. transfers, retirements, resignations and deaths, physical incapacitation, etc.), approval by a subsisting board in line with the NDDC Act in ratio of production quota. This action is a violation of these provisions. This exercise is being carried out in the face of inconclusive staff promotion exercises for 2016, 2017 and 2018 in the Commission.”
It would be recalled that a similar plot was hatched by the immediate past management committee to illegally engage new staff but the move was cancelled by the Senate recently. Several calls placed across to Akpabio by this reporter were unanswered. But a Niger Delta activist, Comrade Dickson Brisibe, warned the interim management team and the Minister to desist from such reported illegality ” to avoid putting themselves in danger before the Law.”
