Credible Sources at the Federal Ministry of Education have revealed that the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) was currently over staffed with many personnel without office spaces and schedule of duty.
The Source has denied claims in a leading newspaper that the Minister of Education was behind the delay in resumption by new employees of NELFUND.
“We can authoritatively state that there is no approval for any recruitment exercise in the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) as the agency is over staffed with many personnel without office spaces and schedule of duty”, the source said.
The Ministry source stated that, “the report in the media that the Honourable Minister of Education’s directive delayed NELFUND employees’ resumption is not only false but misleading”.
According to the source “in the process, before the Honourable Minister became involved, the Executive Management team met with the Chairman, Mr Jim Ovia, in Lagos. At this meeting, the Chairman halted the ongoing recruitment proceedings, declaring them unnecessary at the moment. The reason: there had been no approval from the board, nor had management formally reviewed or discussed any recruitment plans. When the three executive directors requested evidence of proper authorization from the Managing Director (MD), their request was ignored.”
The source went further to state that “Despite objections from three senior officials, the MD proceeded independently, organising recruitment exercises and conducting documentation outside official channels”.
“The Chairman clearly instructed that those already recruited through this process should not be added to the organization’s payroll. In the same meeting, he also ordered a comprehensive review of staff ranks to ensure transparency and compliance with organizational protocols”, the source stated further
According to the source, “Subsequently, following the Management’s latest visit to the Honourable Minister’s office, the MD reportedly convened a private meeting with his close aides, and vowed to proceed with the exercise”.
The source told our reporter that, “for clarity and verification, I recommend reaching out to both the Board Secretary and the Executive Director of Operations. They can confirm the instructions given in Lagos regarding recruitment freezes and the staff rank review.”
According to the source “the current status of NELFUND is alarming: approximately 80% of the workforce is redundant. This issue was unanimously acknowledged at our recent management meeting, where all four key leaders agreed, urgent action is required to resolve the redundancy crisis. At this stage, we simply cannot afford to increase staffing.
“It is worth noting that intervention by the Honourable Minister has been instrumental in averting organizational collapse”.
