The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, has sacked over 42 of its newly recruited workers without paying them a one-year salary.
The sacked workers were recruited in December 2019 – a couple of months before the sack of former Director-General Mustapha Maihaja.
While trying to finalise documentations and settle in the new workplace, the new NEMA management led by AVM Muhammadu Mohammed wrote to the new staffers, informing them that their appointment was illegal, adding that some civil service regulations were not duly followed.
The letter, dated June 30, 2020, asked them to stay action pending the outcome of conclusive investigation.
Issuing a second letter, dated January 25, 2021 and signed by a NEMA Deputy Director, Musa Zakari, NEMA told the affected staff that the “the outcome of the investigation shows that the laid down rules and regulations guiding recruitment into the civil service were not duly exhausted, thereby vitiating the whole process and its outcome”.
The letter, therefore, cancelled the appointment letters given to the new recruits forthwith for “being not in order”.
Earlier, on September 8, 2020, the affected workers had petitioned the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, seeking her intervention in the development.