Employment: DPR recruits 500 out of 700,000 applicants

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has disclosed that about 500 workers were recruited in the last employment exercise, saying over 700, 000 candidates applied for various positions.

DPR Director, Mr Mordecai Ladan made this known while responding to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream demand for the agency to submit a comprehensive list of workers recently employed.

The DPR boss said necessary procedures were followed in the recruitment exercise, even as he assured the committee that all requested documents would be made available

He added that there is nothing to worry about, as the federal character provision and other criteria were used in the recruitment process.

According to him, “When we wanted to recruit, we informed all relevant committees in the National Assembly.

“Advertisements came out in November 2018, although there were things that needed to be sorted out and that made the process to last for six months and over 700, 000 people applied.

“The interview was conducted after one year. Meanwhile, Federal Character Commission was involved in the process and every state was taken care of in the recruitment, catchment areas were also used,” he said.

Earlier the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Tayo Alasoadura,had asked the agency to provide names of those recruited, their states of origin and other details, to enable it determine if the process met Federal Character requirements or not.

It further sought to know why the agency’s overhead cost went down by 50 per cent in the 2019 budget.

The committee also requested for an explicit and detailed presentation of the agency’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and how it is being utilised, as the figures are not contained in the budget proposal.

It further demanded to know fixed salaries of workers in the agency.