TheCable

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it did not sack any of its staff members.

In a statement on Sunday, Manzo Ezekiel, the agency’s head of media and public relations, said the media reports about the sack of 48 workers in NEMA was “grossly misleading”.

Ezekiel stated that NEMA only nullified the “questionable recruitment process” of some candidates into the agency.

He noted that the affected candidates were issued appointment letters without exhausting the conditions in the public service rules and guidelines for appointment.

“Contrary to the allegations in these publications, the Agency did not sack any staff. Rather, the management of the Agency only correctly nullified a questionable and hurriedly arranged recruitment that was marred by irregularities and lack of adherence to established procedures for recruitment into the Public Service,” he said.

“Those claimed to have been sacked were candidates of that spurious exercise. To set the records straight, NEMA wishes to make the following clarifications on the matter.

“Although approval was obtained from the NEMA Governing Council for recruitment in 2018, there are other complementary and critical procedures that were not followed, which effectively invalidated the exercise. These include obtaining approval from the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation with regards to established vacancies and manpower budget.

“The supervising ministry of NEMA, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, was also completely excluded from the recruitment. The standard protocol dictates that the Ministry, which was created and assigned a supervisory role over the Agency in 2019, must be briefed and involved in such exercises.

“On the allegation that salaries of the said candidates were unpaid for one year, it must be clearly restated that NEMA does not pay salaries of public servants. For the avoidance of doubt, the confirmation of recruitment and payment of the salaries of a public servant on a continuous monthly basis follows established standards.”