How Chukka-Onaeko’s illegal Recruitment At ITF Caused Delayed Payment Of Staff Salaries

More facts have emerged into the unprecedented underhand dealings which crept into the Industrial Training Fund, ITF, ever since Mrs. Juliet Chukka-Onaeko became the Director-General of the agency last year. Her alleged flagrant abuse of office is such that is evident in the delayed payment of the August salary of some workers at the institution, as gathered.

DAILY POST can authoritatively report that the embattled DG had since last May when she assumed office engaged in employment bazaar that saw her employ “over 400 persons in flagrant disregard of the Federal Character principle and without passing through the Federal Character Commission.”

An inside source at the agency, who begged not to be named for fear of victimization, alleged that, “some beneficiaries of the illegal employment, mostly graduates, were made to part with as much as N400,000 to secure the jobs. The DG had external persons who collected these monies on her behalf so as not to get implicated.”

Between March and April 2015, the DG was said to have “illegally recruited 260 persons and because there were no vacancies before they were employed, it has been difficult to put them on payroll. Since the beneficiaries collected their employment letters, they have not received salaries until last month when the DG found a way to get them paid their August salaries.

“But as if robbing Peter to pay Paul, this move by her resulted in the delay in the payment of last month salaries of other staff of the institution. I can tell you that since I started working here years ago, this is the first time that ITF is owing salary of workers,” a staffer confided in DAILY POST.

Meanwhile, checks by this newspaper revealed that the Federal Character Principle requires that a parastatal, such as ITF, must only employ workers when there are vacancies.

It also demands that before any recruitment can be carried out into any government agency or parastatal, such must be advertised in at least two national dailies, after which applicants would be shortlisted and told to prepare for examination. But it was learnt that none of these obtained in the close to 500 persons illegally employed by the DG till date.

However, when the failure of the institution to pay staff began to put the ITF boss under intense pressure, a well-informed source told our correspondent that, “she sent an SMS to the Director of Administration where she requested to be furnished with the list of all redundant staff in ITF for termination. Of course, you know that the redundant staff cannot include those she fraudulently collected money from to be given job at ITF.”

While rhetorically asking DAILY POST what can Mrs Chukka-Onaeko’s rationale be for coming in and immediately began recruiting over 400 people without first carrying out a personnel audit, the insider noted that “the question many of us are now asking is why employ without first of all carrying out an audit?.”

Nevertheless, the credibility of Mrs. Juliet Chukka-Onaeko to occupy the position of ITF DG has also come under question. 

The present DG, who took over leadership of the fund from a renowned academic, Prof. Longmas Wapmuk, was said by a highly-placed staff at the agency to be “flaunting an honorary doctorate degree as her prized qualification to seat as DG of an ITF that has always been headed by Professors. We have actually advised her to remove the ‘Dr’ she attaches to her name lest she by that attracts the attention of prying journalists because people actually know it is honorary.”

Further investigations by this newspaper revealed that Mrs Chukka-Onaeko actually got the honourary degree from St. Clement University at Ireland, which is highly known for granting online degrees to some Nigerians including the sitting governor of a North-Central state.

Our correspondent spoke with a former Director at ITF who said, “Her (Chukkas-Onaeko) CV is very vague and this is why people are questioning her qualification for that job. Whoever is to be the ITF DG is expected to have 35 years working experience; must have headed a Grade A parastatal as a senior director if not chief executive officer. She was just a board member at one parastatal before the former president catapulted her to head the ITF.”

DAILY POST had before now laid this findings before a Media Aide to the ITF DG, Mr. Meshach Idehen and he responded thus: “just like the figures you are asking for, I will also need to liaise with the appropriate quarters. This is a government agency that does employment for qualified people. But what I will need to clarify is that exact number of 400”.

As regards Mrs. Chukka-Onaeko’s qualifications for the job, he said: “Certainly, I don’t have anything to say about that because I am not the one that made her appointment and I’m sure the appropriate authority which made the appointment in the previous year knew exactly the kind of professional they were looking for to run the organisation the way they wanted”.

Meanwhile, another allegation on the neck of the embattled DG is the one that has to do with her converting a bus-like vehicle which was then used by her predecessor into personal use. Emerging facts have it that the same vehicle is now been used by a private school in Abuja (names withheld) belonging to Mrs. Juliet Chukka-Onaekko. Efforts to get her reaction on this proved abortive.

*I advised her last time to do a press release and clear he air and i am surprised she said yes but didnt.I just pray this is not some dirty work to bring her down.

I call on her media team to please respond to all the allegations.