Nigeria Customs Denies Spending N1.6bn On Recruitment Exercise Alone

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has denied the claim of the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, that it paid a consultant the sum of N1.6 billion to conduct recruitment exercise for 3,200 people to the service.

NCS insisted that the N1.6 billion was paid to the consultant for both the recruitment and training for the entire period of the exercise.

Fadahunsi had accused the Comptroller General of the NCS, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), of paying N1.6 billion to a consultant for the recruitment of 3,200 persons to the service.

Fadahunsi, who is a retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, said,“The CG wants to recruit 3,200 persons and he paid N1.6 billion to a consultant to recruit 3,200 persons. The money is not for training, but to just recruit them.”

But the Public Relations Officer, NCS, Joseph Attah, explained that the funds covered the recruitment and training, which will last six months.

Giving a breakdown of the figures, he said, “The feeding will cost N2,000 per trainee a day (N6.4m/day and N192m/month), which is about N1.152bn for the 3,200 persons for the six-month training at the Customs Training College, Ikeja.

“The process of recruitment and technical partners has a budget of about N300 million. We have not even talked about t-shirt, canvas, logistics, pay for resource persons and bonus for teachers (which are all part of the figure).”

He said dropping the figure as recruitment fee was misleading.