The Cross River House of Assembly has suspended the recent recruitment of over 300 rangers into its forestry commission, due to the lopsided nature of the exercise.
The House made this known during its plenary in Calabar on Thursday. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the rangers were expected to police the state’s forest reserves against illegal logging, poaching and other criminal activities.
A motion of a urgent matter of public importance calling for the suspension of the recruitment was presented by Mr Kingsley Isong, Member representing Etung State Constituency.
Isong said: “It would be recalled that earlier, the Cross River Forestry Commission had concluded a recruitment of over 300 rangers to protect the state’s forest following the dearth of staff in the commission.
“The recruitment was marred by inequality and unfair representation.
“The list of over 350 hires was not distributed equally among the 18 Local Government Areas of the state.
“The Forestry Commission has derailed from the due process and adherence to the extant rules of recruitment into the civil service by considering what should be for everybody, only for their friends and family members.”
The lawmakers demanded that Dr. George Oben-Etchi, Chairman of the State Forestry Commission, should appear before the House’ special committee to answer some questions and offer explanation with regards to the exercise.
The house unanimously agreed that every indigene of the state should have an equal opportunity to apply for jobs and be contacted for interviews.
It inaugurated an eight-man committee to look into the Commission’s operations, particularly the hiring process which, according to them was unfair and biased.
The house said that the committee, which would be headed by Mr Francis Bassey, Member representing Odukpani Constituency, would investigate the allegations that some LGAs were favoured more than the others in the recruitment.