By Abdul Jelil Adebayo
When the FCT Area Council Service Commission was established, it was saddled with the responsibility of overseeing of the six Area Councils in the territory. These are the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, Kwali, Bwari, Abaji, Kuje and Gwagwalada Area Councils, which are equivalent to local governments in the states.
The commission is also in charge of recruitment, promotion and discipline of staff in the six area councils, hence the importance of whoever is at the helm of affairs at the commission to be proactive and a goal getter.
But recent happenings in the commission need the attention of the Minister of State, FCT, Dr. Maryam Mahmoud who is supervising the commission among other agencies in FCT.
One will not be wrong to say there is underhand handling of trainings, which is one of the major roles of the Commission.
Those who apply to train the staff are commonly referred to as consultants.
As at the last count, there are about 150 consultants, who were engaged by the commission to train the staff of the six area councils that have not been paid for the training they conducted.
The commission is owing them over N600 million as unpaid monies for the services they have so far rendered.
Some of these consultants, it was gathered did the training since 2019 and are yet to be paid. It was gathered also that some of them have died and others hospitalised as they were said to have used their last savings from retirement to train the area council personnel.
Surprisingly, the contract sum for each of such a training must not exceed N2.4million, and most of these consultants are retired civil servants.
There are some of them who have been given letters to train the staff more than five instances without been paid a dime.
Angered by the non payment, some of the consultants decided to form a group they termed “Association of Consultants to the FCT Area Council Commission”
In their letter of protest to the immediate past Minister of State, Ramatu Tijani Aliyu, the members pleaded that the Administration should pray the commission to offset their bills.
Their letter was referred to the FCT Audit department for verification. And that was when trouble started as those who were not prevee to the letter rushed to the commission for inclusion, but were told it was already late and were advised to go and meet the conveners of the association or the audit department.
Their letter was referred to the FCT Audit Department, which unfortunately did a poor Audit assignment.
Only the consultants that petitioned were verified instead of liaising with the account department of the commission.
It was a closed verification,and many of the Consultants who were not in the picture of the petition were left out from the audit and
were never invited.
The Commission also, did not circulate information to all those who did jobs for the Audit exercise.
At the end, some of the Consultants were not listed for payment.
Meanwhile, the original list of Liabilities is with the Account Dept of the Commission, which has been paying until it was stopped by the last administration.
Those left out from the list submitted by the ‘association’ are crying foul that good enough, the Letter of Engagement was not awarded to any Association, but individual Companies.
Meanwhile, those who followed the advice of the Administrative Secretary that the lapses would be resolved said they saw no reason to be confrontational as they believe it would be all encompassing.
But when the payment started, it was the association list that was being used.
It was gathered that the excluded Consultants are also posing for Litigation over their unjust exclusion from the payment.
The “leaders of the association”, believing that sooner than later, payment would commence started charging members token for them to be included in the association list.
Unfortunately though, for about a year now, there is no board to entertain their grievances. And there is no substantive Administrative Secretary who is the accounting officer of the commission to attend to their plea.
Strangely, though, information filtered out that some selected consultants are being paid their debts. Those sidelined and aggrieved ones rushed to the Minister of state office asking why selective payment is being made when the audit of authentication of all the consultants are with the account section of the commission.
And it was gathered that the minister of state promptly waded in and stopped further payment and the account of the commission frozen pending further investigation.
When contacted the acting administrative secretary, Mr. Sardauna Kaya directed this writer to the Minister of state office, saying he was not aware of any payment.
When reminded that the account of the commission has been put on hold, he retorted “please go to the minister office for clarification”’
At the Minister’s office he was asked about the protest by some aggrieved consultants, he was said to have given assurance that everything would be in order.
But last week, a letter of protest was submitted to the office of the Minister of State and copied the commission about haphazard ways in which payments are made on ‘man know man’ basis ignoring the authentic list at the commission account unit.
The Minister of state was said to have given the go-ahead to pay the consultants that have genuine cases but this was ignored hence the protest letter.
The Minister is yet to act on the latest petition that was sent to her last week but at the weekend, some of those on the consultants list were selected and were paid.
When confronted, the acting administrative secretary said he was using the approved list from the Minister of State office which they later found out was not true.
Meanwhile, membership of the commission board is for a term of four years which could be renewed thereafter. But the board was dissolved when the present administration came on board.
In the absence of a Board, the administrative secretary is usually the helmsman of the commission. And for now, neither is there a chairman nor a substantive administrative secretary.
For some time now, the FCT Area Councils Service Commission has been operating without a head but being run by an acting administrative secretary who is billed to retire by December this year.
Ordinarily, the commission ought to have a board with a chairman, administrative secretary, two permanent members and seven non permanent members.
The last appointed board for the commission had its tenure elapsed in December 2020. Then by 2023, another board was inaugurated few months to May 2023 handover to the present administration.
For now all eyes are on the office of the Minister of State to do the needful and restore confidence in the training section of the commission by the consultants.
. Abdul is an Abuja based journalist, writes via abduljelil2001@gmail.com
