THE Federal Government yesterday relief the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Mr. Peter Jack of his appointment over what it described as alleged “misconduct”.
The letter informing him of the termination of his appointment said he is to proceed on indefinite suspension while Dr. Vincent Olatunji has been named as the acting Director-General of the Agency.
The indefinite suspension which takes immediate effect from yesterday, 20/01/2016, became imperative on the strength of deluge of petitions regarding several alleged wrong doings in NITDA and subsequent preliminary findings of an Investigative Committee set up by the Ministry.
A statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Communications, Victor Oluwadamilare, said that petitions written against Jack, which relates to illegal employments not approved by the appropriate authority and procurement carried out in direct contraventions of laid down rules and procedure unknown to Civil Service administration in Nigeria.
Some of the infractions identified by the Investigative Committee made up of three senior Ministry officials include alleged unauthorised illegal recruitment of additional staff totaling 245 within a spate of seven months.
According to the Committee’s startling findings, “as at 29th May, 2015, NITDA only had a staff complement of 74 but from May, 2015 to 31st December, 2015, additional 245 staff were employed in questionable circumstances despite clear instruction from the Ministry directing suspension of employment in the Agency”.
“These disclosure were deduced from the records provided by Jack, although he was unable to provide concrete information on whose authority he embarked on the massive recruitment and who granted him the authority for officials to be seconded to NITDA from other MDAs”, the statement added.
Prior to this development, the suspended DG was specifically directed by the Ministry not to embark on a recruitment exercise purported to have been scheduled for 17th December, 2015, but he defiantly went ahead to recruit without authority.
On the alleged financial misdemeanor, the Committee said that the situation in the Agency would require a more detailed professional auditing of NITDA’s finances to determine the true state of the financial health of the agency.
The statement that he was suspended from office as NITDA’s Director-General to allow for further independent investigations of his stewardship in the last three years.
Olatunji who replaces him, was until his appointment the Director of Corporate Strategy and Research in the Agency. He joined NITDA in 2002.
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