Minister suspends NITDA DG over ‘misconduct’

Adebayo Shittu, minister of communications and technology, has suspended Peter Jack director-general (DG) of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), over alleged misconduct.

In a statement issued on his behalf by Victor Oluwadamilare, the minister’s media aide, Adebayo said the decision to suspend the DG was arrived at after a committee which investigated the allegations against Jack indicted him.

He named Vincent Olatunji, a director of the agency, as the acting director-general of NITDA, saying investigations into Jack’s 3-year tenure were ongoing.

“The petitions against Mr Jack relates to illegal employments not approved by the appropriate authority and procurements carried out in direct contraventions of laid down rules and procedure unknown to Civil Service administration in Nigeria,” the statement read.

“Some of the infractions identified by the investigative committee made up of three senior ministry officials include unauthorised illegal recruitment of additional staff totalling 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 Mr 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.

“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 misdemeanour, the committee opined 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.

“Consequently, Mr. Jack has been suspended from office as NITDA’s director-general so as to allow for further independent investigations of his stewardship in the last three years.”