THE TRUTH ABOUT UNICAL'S "EMPLOYED BUT NOT PAYROLLED"

 

By Dominic Kidzu 

It is unfortunate that in this life, when big men in high places trample on rules, guidelines and processes, with no sense of propriety or responsibility, it is the small, innocent people that bear the brunt in the end. I have cried a river for the "Employed" but not payrolled staff of UNICAL in the past, on these same pages, and now it is time to reveal the findings of my private investigations. 

On the 10th of July, 2019, Mr B.O.C.OMOGO, who is the Director; Organisation, Design and Development in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, responded to a Special Request from the University of Calabar to approve the recruitment of 1,000 Academic and Administrative staff into newly created faculties.

The letter granted the former Vice Chancellor's request with the following concrete directives.

1. To employ a total number of 662 Academic staff. 

2. To employ a total number of 338 Non - Academic staff. 

3. The Approval was based on the 2018 provisional Establishment position of the University, which covered the then proposed recruitment. 

4. The Vice Chancellor was directed to Obtain the clearance of the Budget Office of the Federation before recruitment. 

5. "To make sure that on no account should the Approval be varied or exceeded, in other not to increase the personnel cost unduly". 

6. "That the Officials of this office are required to be present during the exercise to ensure compliance with the waiver".

7. "The list of candidates who are successful in the engagement exercise should be forwarded to this Office for record purposes". 

Unfortunately, the former Vice Chancellor set aside the directives of the approving office and preceeded to recruit staff accordingto his own discretion. He recruited a total of 2,062 instead of the 1,000 approved. Although he received approval to recruit 662 academic staff, he went ahead to recruit only 368 Academic staff and almost 1,700 Non - academic staff as against the 338 that was approved. 

Again, instead of a total number of 99 professors approved, he recruited 2, instead of 127 Associate Professors approved, he recruited none, instead of 149 Senior Lecturers approved, he recruited 6. While approval was given for the recruitment of 146 Lecturer 1 positions, he only recruited 8 and athough there was no approval to hire Graduate Assistants, he hired 105, payrolled 71 and left 34 in the lurch.

He did not have any recourse whatsoever to the Budget Office of the Federation as earlier specified in No.4 above and ultimately was unable to payroll all the people he recruited as a result of non compliance with the specified nomenclatures and figures, and grave irregularities in the entire process. 

While the University Council was still looking for a way to assuage the sufferings of the Academic staff who have not been payrolled, the affected persons took the matter in their own hands and petitioned several federal agencies to course themselves to be payrolled. Among these are 3 No. Senior Lecturers, 3 No. Lecturer 1, 16 No. Lecturer 2, 65 No. Assistant Lecturer and 34 No. Graduate Assistants. By escalating the matter in this way, all the relevant federal agencies are now fully aware of what happened in University of Calabar in 2019, thereby making an already bad situation worse.

Also, as a result of the lopsided recruitment which was heavily commercialised, the same faculties of Engineering, Pharmacy and Environmental Sciences for which the recruitment exercise was approved were not well served. The 99 Professors, 127 Associate Professors and 149 Senior Lecturers were intended to put the new faculties on solid footing, instead the former Vice Chancellor preferred to hire Graduate Assistants and hundreds of Administrative staff for fresh faculties that had just been created. The eight departments under the Faculty of Engineering currently have only one professor while the Faculty of Pharmaceutical studies has no professor at all. As it stands now, those faculties can not stand before any NUC accreditation panel. 

It has become a very difficult task now to payroll persons recruited through that exercise because the various agencies are now, perhaps inadvertently so, well briefed about the Unical Recruitment Gate, thanks to the widely circulated petitions against the current Vice Chancellor. The only available option now is for these suffering persons to hope that the Federal authorities grant the university another window for recruitment with allowances for them to be accommodated.

The Federal Ministry of Education and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation for instance, want the university to sack all those who were employed outside the specific approvals obtained. The Vice Chancellor is reluctant to do so because they are mostly Cross Riverians. There are only a few unpayrolled academic staff that meet the aforementioned criteria. Professor Florence Obi is clearly not the problem, because the problem was all cooked and served before she was sworn in as the 11th Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar.