The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has pledged its commitment to abide by provisions of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act as it seeks to entrench sustainable culture of probity and accountability in all its operations.

While inducting about 595 new employees in Abuja, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, stated that NNPC had before the signing into law of the FoI Act by President Goodluck Jonathan, taken bold measures in opening up its operations to public scrutiny.

Yakubu maintained that the NNPC has kept an open door policy in its operations without the FoI Act, adding that it volunteered information to its various publics through press releases, advertorials and presentations at different fora including hearings at the National Assembly.

He disclosed in a statement from the corporation’s acting Group General Manager, Public Affairs yesterday in Abuja that the management had swiftly established a task force with the goal of examining the content of the Act and advising it on how best to comply with its provisions when it became law in 2011.

“We have since internalised the contents of that report and as a corporation, we are ready to ensure that our actions and processes live up to public scrutiny. Under my watch as GMD, I intend to abide by this principle,” Yakubu stated.

Also, the GMD described the processes leading to its employment of 595 new staff as the most painstaking and transparent recruitment ever conducted in the history of the corporation.

According to him, the exercise which began with the placement of advertisement in some national newspapers and the NNPC website in November 2010 was designed at the onset to provide equal opportunity to Nigerians to aspire for available vacancies in the services of the corporation.

The GMD also noted that in line with the requirements of the Federal Character Commission (FCC), the corporation engaged the commission for vetting of the recruitment exercise, thus, issuing it a certificate of compliance and bringing the exercise to a successful close after a series of interface.

Yakubu explained that: “Subsequently, a record 269,376 applications were received and from that figure 44,239 candidates were shortlisted for aptitude test. On March 26, 2011, a simultaneous test exercise was conducted across nine Nigerian cities for 36,479 candidates representing 72 percent of shortlisted candidates.

Of this number, 18 percent of the shortlisted candidates did not show up for the test. Further breakdown of the shortlisted 269,376 applications indicate that 4,173 or 1.5 percent were for contract employment while the rest applied for permanent position.”


http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/nnpc-employs-595-to-abide-by-foi-act/122255/