House of Representatives has resolved to summon the Controller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd) to explain the non-recruitment of officers into the service for the past 17 years leading to a near lack of junior officers in the service.
The decision followed a resolution passed by the Technical Committee of the House Committee on Customs and Excise after its oversight visit to most services formations across the country where they discovered that most of the jobs were being carried out by senior officers as a result of lack of junior officers.
Chairman of the Technical Committee, Mr. Leke Abejide at the FCT Command headquarters of the service blamed the Management for the lack of junior officers, noting that the house expected recruitment to have taken place about 2 years ago, and as a result of the delay in process, rumors were peddled saying the management was carrying out secret recruitment.
The Lawmaker noted that the House would work in synergy with the Senate to ensure young eligible Nigerians were given the opportunity to serve, adding that there were plans to recruit at least one officer per local government.
Mr. Abejide also said the Committee discovered that senior officers who supposed to supervise examination of the containers and cargoes were physically carrying out such examination as a result of the lack of junior officers to perform the function.
Speaking, the FCT Controller of Customs, Ms. Patience Burromvyat informed the Committee that out of the 186 staff present at the command, 126 were senior officers while 60 were junior officers, adding that the majority of the junior officers were drafted to the border post.
RN