The Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream has requested that the Department of Petroleum Resources submit a comprehensive list of workers recently employed by the agency.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Tayo Alasoadura made this known when the agency appeared before it for budget defence.
The committee asked the agency to provide names of those recruited, their states of origin and other details, to enable it to determine if the process met Federal Character requirements or not.
It further sought to know why the agency’s overhead cost went down by 50 per cent in the 2019 budget.
The committee also requested for an explicit and detailed presentation of the agency’s Internally Generated Revenue and how it is being utilised, as the figures are not contained in the budget proposal.
Responding, DPR Director, Mr Mordecai Ladan assured the committee that all requested documents would be made available.
He added that there is nothing to worry about, as the federal character provision and other criteria were used in the recruitment process.
While confirming that the agency recruited over 500 workers, he said necessary procedures were followed in the recruitment.
“When we wanted to recruit, we informed all relevant committees in the National Assembly.
“Advertisements came out in November 2018, although there were things that needed to be sorted out and that made the process to last for six months and over 700, 000 people applied.
“The interview was conducted after one year. Meanwhile, the Federal Character Commission was involved in the process and every state was taken care of in the recruitment, catchment areas were also used,” he said.
On why the overhead cost for 2019 budget was reduced by 50 per cent, the director said it was based on request from the Budget Office.
“The budget office asked us to reduce the expenditure,” he said.
Ladan noted that the agency had a total budget of N39.33 billion, with N681 million as capital expenditure, N592.90 million overhead cost and N38.06 billion as personnel cost.
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