Africa-Press – Nigeria. The Deputy Senate Majority Leader, Prof. Ajayi Boroffice, has lamented the fact that the Nigerian Space Agency has been employing graduates of religious studies and other unrelated courses instead of scientists and engineers to man its operations.
Boroffice who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Science and Technology, made the revelation at the Annual National Space Dialogue/Media Conference on Space Science and Technology in Abuja at the weekend, insisting that for the agency to be sanitized and given its rightful place in the scheme of things, the right candidates should be employed.
The Senator added that the situation which can be traced to favouritism, has led to misemployment, considering that the support staff of the agency constitutes about 80 per cent of the workforce, insisting that the agency needed scientists and engineers to constitute about 70 per cent of the workforce instead of what is in existence at present.
“How can you be taking people with religious studies in the space centre? It is misemployment when the support staff that constitute about 80 per cent are the workforce are not scientists. It is wrong,” Boroffice stated.
Continuing, he said:
“We need experience. We need scientists to constitute about 70% per cent of the workforce but the reverse is the case.
“I learnt that the ICPC is around, scrutinising employment documents; I also heard employment is earned with N2 million, N2.5 million. It is sad.
“We have to re-examine ourselves. We have to sanitize the space agency so that we can achieve the purpose of nation itself.”
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