Reps panel accuses IPPIS officials of extorting agencies 

House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating employment racketeering has accused officials of Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS) of extortion, following their alleged refusal to capture workers duly employed in government’s payroll.

Chairman of the committee, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, raised the allegation, when the director general of Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA), Rabiu Dagari, appeared before the panel, yesterday.

While drawing the attention of an IPPIS desk officer at the hearing to the failure of the agency to capture some DTCA staff on the payroll, Gagdi said: “We have allegations against you that you are collecting 10 per cent from agencies for recruitment.”

He said: “Have you taken note of the fact that they wrote to you concerning the recruitment they did? They have a balance of resources as a result of retirement and other reasons. These monies are always ‘absconded’ and not returned to the treasury.

“They wrote two letters to IPPIS to capture the people (with whom) they followed due process in recruiting and you refused.”

There are allegations that you go to agencies to ask for money before you capture people. Yet, the ones that are legitimately employed will not be captured.”

Gagdi said if an agency wrote to IPPIS to capture people that were recruited, it meant the employment was legitimate. “Otherwise, the head of the agency will not be writing to you. Is it that IPPIS captures only people that pay money into bank accounts or what?”

He added: “We are emphasising this, so that when we start to engage IPPIS, you will not think that we are joking. Therefore, report to them, so that when they are appearing before us, they will provide an explanation for all these.”

On his part, Dagari said government agencies resort to waivers for recruitment to cut corners, noting that the method was denying the government the opportunity of employing some of the best hands to man strategic positions.

“Before I became director general of this agency, I was a foreign service officer for 34 years. During our time, I never heard of waivers. Maybe, during our time, people were not as desperate as they are now.

“But I know that during our time, if there was something like a waiver, some of us would not be holding the position we are today. I come from a very remote area in Yobe State. Without knowing anybody, I did my exams, without anybody assisting me,” Dagari explained.

“I am not in support of waivers because so much cutting corners are done. We are having so many problems in this country because we refuse to do the right things and waiver is an opportunity for people to cut corners. Something has to be done about it,” he said, adding that a waiver should only be used in employment when it becomes exceptionally necessary.