The Senate Thursday gave the Nigerian Shippers’ Council a seven-day ultimatum to present the details of its 2018 staff recruitment exercise.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport, Senator Ahmed Sani, gave the directive when the management of the Council appeared before the committee to defend its 2019 budget estimate.
The directive was sequel to an enquiry by a committee member, Senator Theodore Orji as to whether the Council kept the committee abreast of its 2018 recruitment exercise.
Orji had said :”Mr chairman, my colleagues, our guests, if you look at their executive summary, page four, item number six, it focuses on enhancement of manpower, training and development. I presume that this enhancement also include that you have to employ people and train them.
“I want to know if you have been employing people on the conditions of employing them and if this committee is aware and has made any input in their employment system”.
The Executive Secretary (E.S.) of Shippers’ Council, Mr. Hassan Bello, represented by Director, Strategic Planning and Research, Ola Babafemi, while responding said the 2018 budget of the organisation indicated that there would be employment in the course of the year.
According to him, “There was a differential in the number of staff that was indicated in 2017 and that of 2018. And the budget was passed accordingly, indicating that there is a number of staff that this distinguished committee approved for employment in the course of 2018.
“In the course of the year, there were some recruitments and the details of this is actually something I may not be able to clearly state precisely now,” he said.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Sani, however, directed that the council should get the details of the employment exercise across to the committee.
His words :”Please, can you give us the details, let us know the number of people employed and the categories.
“We will also want to have details of the outstanding vacancies because the E.S. told us that there are outstanding positions.
“This information should be given to us in one week, by Tuesday next week,” he remarked.
On his part, Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Suleiman Ogembe, stressed that the committee was unaware of any recruitment exercise in the organisation.
“As an addendum to my colleague’s question, I can say categorically that this committee is not aware of any employment as of today.
“Because as vice chairman of the committee, with all due respect to the chairman, he has given me all the privilege to attend to most of these things, so no member of this committee is aware of any employment at Shippers’ Council.
“Although there was an arrangement that was done at a particular time, nothing came out of it. So Mr Chairman sir, I think you will need to request for the nominal roll of Shippers’ Council,” he said.
.THISDAY