APC, PDP at loggerhead over recruitment in Benue

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

The All Progressives Congress, APC in Benue State has condemned recruitment into Board of Internal Revenue Service by the Peoples Democratic Party led administration, describing it as ‘nepotistic’ and a ‘geometric’ progression from bad leadership to worse.
This is just as Chairman of the Board, Mr. Andrew Ayabam has stoutly defended the recruitment, noting that it has fair representation.
The opposition party in a press statement signed by its acting Publicity Secretary, James Ornguga and made available to our reporter yesterday, said the party finds it strange that despite appointing a chairman to the board that received endless applauses, the governor has gone ahead to usurp the powers of management and hastily announce a recruitment list without any form of interview or aptitude test in the 21st century.
“The tone of the press release announcing the recruitment clearly shows it may have been signed under duress, as it violates the standard administrative protocol for such announcements.
“More worrisome is the fact that half of the candidates are allegedly from the governor’s own local government of Guma while a few other lucky persons recommended by his political associates narrowly made the list.
“With this sham of a recruitment already in place at a board that should be generating revenue for the state, we can tell the end from the beginning that no serious output can come from it save a clandestine political settlement.
“We are aware of evidently noticeable political schemes trying to muzzle the new BIRS Chairman, Mr. Andrew Ayabam to urgently take the shine off him as “Mr. Employment” for suspected intentions.
While reacting, Ayabam who described as, ‘false’ insinuations and allegations that the list was doctored by Government House, said each of the 23 local government areas was fairly represented.
According to him, ‘We hired Benue indigenes who are graduates. In all, over 10,000 applied. The Recruitment is a continuous process which will ultimately drive the Internally generated revenue of the State. We even engaged the services of DSS to do checks to identify and distinguish persons.
“There are more human gaps to be covered as we have abolished consultancy. If we have enough resources, we will engage as much as is desired to fill the gaps as much as the State wage bill can carry. We want to have an informed and enlightened tax administration in Benue State.”