The Kano State government has disclosed the purported hiring of unqualified individuals, including Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) students, into the Civil Service during the previous administration of Abdullahi Ganduje.

Daily Trust reports that at the inception of the current administration, the government directed suspension of the salaries of some civil servants.

Subsequently, a committee was set up to screen and verify employment conducted by the immediate past administration.

Addressing reporters on Friday, Abudullahi Baffa Bichi, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), said the committee found out that the last administration undertook mass employment without recourse to necessary guidelines and service regulation.

He added the committee recommended the dismissal of unqualified persons, who were over 3,000.

“The verification committee report was received by the Government and its salient observations and recommendations were noted and accepted. The majority of the employment was not captured in the 2023 Approved Budget and a significant percentage of those employed had neither applied nor indicated interest to serve which form a major aspect of employment requirement.”

“Most of those employed did not undergo processes of screening and recruitment interviews as expected by the service regulations; employed were found to have suspicious or forged certificates, while many non-indigenes were employed in spite of a large number of qualified unemployed indigenes roaming.

“The employment did not take into consideration the actual manpower needs of the respective MDAs but was influenced by the desire to tie down the new Administration financially; our streets and those employed were wrongly placed through deployment to non-career posts or the calling of their respective qualifications.

“There was gross underemployment where officers with higher qualifications attracting senior cadres were employed on the junior cadre of the service contrary to the needs of the MDAs and approval granted for such employment.

“A number of students in their active study years were also found to be employed, including students of junior secondary schools, senior secondary schools and some in their early stages of tertiary education; a number of persons recruited were found to be undergoing their National Service Program (NYSC) while a number of people confirmed to be overaged or under-aged were found to be employed and on the State payroll,” Bichi said.