The employment of 3,234 individuals in Kano State who were allegedly found to be ineligible for civil service positions has been terminated by the State government.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, announced this during a press briefing on Friday. He explained that this action was taken in response to the government’s decision to enforce the findings of the committee responsible for screening and verifying employment, which was conducted by the previous administration
The SSG, however, noted that the state government has approved the reinstatement of a total of 9,332 staff across 51 MDAs that were found eligible by the committee.
He said, “The verification committee report was received by the Government and its salient observations and recommendations were noted and accepted. The majority of the employment was not captured in the 2023 Approved Budget and a significant percentage of those employed had neither applied nor indicated interest to serve which form a major aspect of employment requirement. Most of those employed did not undergo processes of screening and recruitment interviews as expected by the service regulations; employees were found to have suspicious or forged certificates, while many non-indigenes were employed in spite of a large number of qualified unemployed indigenes roaming.
“The employment did not take into consideration the actual manpower needs of the respective MDAs but was influenced by the desire to tie down the new Administration financially; our streets and those employed were wrongly placed through deployment to non-career posts or the calling of their respective qualifications.”
He explained that the committee, given the number of those employed, broke into three panels to handle the screening of the 12,566 as against the 10,800 earlier reported. “Those found with offers of appointments but not on the payroll should be subjected to further interviews by relevant recruitment centres in the Service; Proper placement and posting, deployment of eligible staff to relevant MDAs for optimal utilization should be undertaken while in case of those employed into the lower cadre without any regard to their qualifications, they should be properly placed depending on need and availability of vacancy,” Bichi added.
The Kano State government had at the inception of the incumbent administration, directed suspension of the salaries of some civil servants. It said the decision was informed by the seemingly ominous spree with which the last administration undertook mass employment without recourse to necessary guidelines and service regulation.
