Minister of Labour and
Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige has faulted the stand of the Chairman of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole on the constitution and
inauguration of the board members of federal agencies and parastatal under his
ministry.
The APC chairman, in a letter,
had given the labour minister one week within which to constitute the board of
the parastatals and agencies under his ministry.
The parastatals and agencies are
the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), National Directorate of
Employment (NDE), National Productivity Centre (NPC), and Michael Imoudu
Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS).
But, Ngige, in his reply,
explained why he would not constitute the Board of NSITF within the one week
ultimatum given by Oshiuomhole. He expressed disbelief that such a letter could
emanate from the APC chairman.
He said: “Our National Chairman,
I am in receipt of a letter referenced APC/NHDQ/ GEN-S/28/018/003 dated July
11, 2018, which was sent from your office and received by me on July 12, 2018.
Ordinarily, I would not believe the letter was from you except for the barrage
of media statements that came before I saw the letter. I read the contents of
this letter with both amazement and utter disbelief.
“Three agencies have been
reconstituted and members were inaugurated on March 8, 2018, in conformity with
a presidential directive. All the three boards are currently operational. The
only agency left out was the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF),
which, before the directive, had been enmeshed in major issues of corruption,
involving about N48 billion, comprising Federal Government and employers’
contributions to the Employees’ Compensation Fund, plus some non-remitted PAYE
taxes, which were carted away through well perfected sleaze operation. This
resulted in the agency coming under the EFCC’s investigation/prosecution of members
of the former board and some of her serving officials.
“An Administrative and Financial
Panel of Enquiry was instituted with a presidential approval as a follow – up
to the criminal investigations. This was followed by a House of Representatives
Committee on Labour and Employment probe in March 2018, which is still ongoing.
“Comrade National Chairman, you
are aware of this situation and you had broached this issue with me during your
campaign period, when I visited your campaign office. Due to the fact that a
lot of the information available to me as a minister are classified, I had told
you that I will brief you later and, at our last meeting, during a function on
Saturday, July 7, 2018, I had sought for an appointment for the next day, so I
could brief you on the situation.”
“I’m not oblivious of the fact that
you are a very interested party in the matter because having served as chairman
of the NSITF board before the last board, and as a former Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC) president, you would be interested in the tripartite colouration
of the board being maintained. More so, as labour still remains your base
constituency. Mr. Chairman, a lot of the classified information from the EFCC,
the Auditor-General of the Federation’s “spot check” report for an organisation
with an account that has not been audited for five years – 2013 – 2017, are not
within your purview. In view of all these damaging reports, I had a
presidential permission not to inaugurate this particular board at the time we
did the others.”
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