Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has suspended the Chairman, Emmanuel Tetsola, and members of the Delta State Civil Service Commission over gross mismanagement of the recent recruitment exercise into the state Civil Service. Also, an Administrative Panel of Inquiry has been set up to review the exercise.

The Secretary to the State Government, Comrade Ovuozorie Macaulay, in a statement issued Thursday, said that the suspension became necessary as “the recruitment exercise which was to address some vacancies in the service and respond to the employment needs of the state, has, however, been abused and ridiculously mismanaged by the Civil Service Commission.

“More embarrassing is the allegation of gross misconduct, abuse of office and fraud involving the sale of employment letters on account of which some members of the commission are presently undergoing interrogation by the security agencies,” Comrade Macaulay stated.

Comrade Ovuzorie explained that the suspension of the Chairman and members of the commission was to sanitise the exercise and pave way for an administrative panel which has been set up to review the exercise.

News Express, however, reports that the employment process which began in 2013 was put on hold following various degrees of allegations which had befallen the recruitment exercise in the state.

It was learnt that over 100,000 Deltans applied for recruitment where the governor stated that only 986 candidates would be recruited into the state civil service.

A few weeks back, the commission released 1800 names as shortlisted candidates without going through process of competitive examination before selection of successful candidates.

Many Deltans questioned the rationale for the selection of the 1,800 shortlisted candidates out of the over 100,000 applicants for the 986 advertised vacancies in the commission.

But rather than present employment letters to the shortlisted candidates, the commission resorted to selling the employment letters to the highest bidders, thereby enriching themselves at the expense of poor Deltans.

It was also alleged that the positions were distributed among members of the state executive council, House of Assembly members, and other powerful politicians in the state.

The action resulted in recruiting persons who did not apply for employment into the state civil service.

It was reported that employment letters were sold at different rates, ranging from N200,000, N500,000 to N800,000 and above and the highest bidders were given employment into the service.

•Photo shows Governor Uduaghan.