The joint commitee of the senate and House of Representatives on Co-operation, Integration in Africa and NEPAD on Tuesday sought for the nominal roll of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, due to observed increase in personnel cost in their budget.
This followed what the lawmakers described as arbitrary employment without regard to laid down procedure.
Consequently, the joint committees demanded for the nominal roll of the agency for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The Director General of the Institute, Dr. Bakuy Tswah Bakut had presented over N100million increase in personnel cost in the 2022 budget proposals during the budget defence of the agency on Tuesday in Abuja.
Specifically, the commitee demanded to know in details how recruitment were carried out in the past and the advertisement for the vacant positions that led to the employment.
Honourable Nicholas Ossai, Ndokwa/Ukwani federal constituency emphasised “Give us list of nominal roll, tell us in details how they were employed, what were the nominal roll in 2019, 2020 and 2021”.
“You did employment without following procedure, you must tell us how you got the approval to employ.
“There is no transparency, because you never advertised, we can decide to do status enquiry” he said.
Also Speaking, Senator Yusuf Yusuf, representing Taraba Central said “I agree we need to do status enquiry of this agency, I think we need to suspend this budget until he bring the nominal roll for 2019, 2020 and 2021”.
However, Dr. Bakut told the lawmakers that the employees of the Institute most often were posted to the agency.
Earlier, the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) and the Directorate for Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA) also defended their 2022 budget proposals.
Meanwhile, the chairman of senate commitee on Cooperation, Integration in Africa and NEPAD, Senator Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu East) in an interview shortly after the session said the commitee had employment issues with the institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR).
Nnamani said the committee would look into the employment issues at the agency, whether due process was followed and revisit the budget.
“We just completed our budget defence session with NEPAD, DTCA and IPCR.
“We had employment issues with IPCR, where we have over N100million increase in personnel cost, so we need to look at the nominal roll for the past two-three years to see what happened, all those who were employed whether due process was followed for their employment, after which we will revisit their budget” Nnamani said.
