…ICPC should probe recent employment
A group of workers of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, under the auspices of “Concerned staff” have decried the level of lopsidedness in the employment of new staff to the health institution.
They called on ICPC, IPPIS to take a cursory look at the activities going on at the hospital adding that most of the people that were recently employed were not the most needed personnel as the hospital lacks skilled manpower.
They made their grieviances was contained in a release signed by Ipole Edom and Theophilus Eyong, leaders of the group, and made available to newsmen stating that the last recruitment exercise which was done had more nurses but, surprisingly a lot of their names were removed from the final list.
“There are a lot of things that have moved from bad to worse as only ad-hoc staff were the ones given employment.
“We are also aware that the recruitment exercise carried out at a popular hotel at Marian, where many of the applicants were asked to pay as high as 300,000 and their names used to replace the initial people who were selected will not help the hospital.
“We are also surprised that the management through some core senior officials are claiming that IPPIS and the Federal Character Commission was responsible for the 50 letters recently given out, that they also made the changes by adding their own interest on the list.
“Hence we are calling on ICPC to investigate this matter, because what we seek is professionalism and nothing less, we need these professionals to achieve this.
“We recognize the fact that the new management means well but there are some senior officials who have used their offices as a platform for dishing out employment; a certain clerk of the House of Assembly equally got few slots.
“As we speak, some of the letters and employment are being revoked in the guise that they made mistakes on their names, but the people who facilitated the issuing of the letters should also refund the money they collected from the applicants.
“The man at the helm of affairs may not even be aware of the situation, but it was high time he checked his lieutenants because a lot may be going on that he can still stop.
“For instance, the head of nursing who has retired but is still collecting salary for almost six months meanwhile, the federal government is borrowing money to pay salaries, how do you reconcile that,” they stated.
When contacted on Saturday, the CMD of UCTH, Prof. Ikpeme tasked the “Concerned Staff” to provide evidence to all of their allegations.
He asserted that the petitioners do not understand how recruitments are done in the service
“I have been telling them to provide evidence to allegations because it is becoming like mere rumours. To whom was N300, 000 given? Which staff collected the monies? It is when there is a name to these allegations that we can take it up.
“On recruitment, there is something that some of these staff don’t understand about the service, recruitment is done based on the recommendation of the Head of Service.
“For instance, there is approval from the office of the Head of Service for the recruitment of 120 resident doctors, we will not then recruit engineers’.
CMD Ikpeme observed that he is the most accessible management staff. That since he became Chief Medical Director, he has maintained his old phone number.
“My Office is not discriminatory as to when to visit even when he scheduled for the theatre, ‘Why are they going public when they can approach me?
“If they sincerely believe I may not be aware of some of the issues in their petition, and if they have a challenge with the Director of Administration for fear of alleged victimisation, should they extrapolate it to the CMD, and refrain from approaching me with any of their challenges?’, he queried.
