Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
The services rendered by governments the world over are being provided through a group of individuals known as the public servants under an umbrella of a system called the public service. In Nigeria, public servants comprises of senior and junior staff, as well as executive and administrative cadres who are largely distinguished based on their educational qualifications, training, skills, ranks and the duties they discharge. The public Service on the other hand refers to “the totality of the administrative structures within which the work of government is carried out” [1]. It covers agencies at the Federal levels like the Federal Civil Service, Legislatures and the Judiciary including their agencies and parastatals. The term usually denotes a wider scope of governmental agencies than the civil service. In addition it encompasses the civil service in the strict sense of the ministries and department of the central government and the field administration; it also covers local governments, the military, the police and other security agencies. The concept also covers advisory governmental bodies and the public enterprises. Public Service is a dynamic structure of government which operates based on rules that are reviewed every five years in Nigeria so as to keep in tune with changing times, to serve the current needs of society and to provide for the future requirements of the people. One of the principles of a public service is “Permanence”.
The Public service is often defined as a permanent body of officials that carryout government decisions. It is permanent and its life is not tied to the life of any particular government. From this principle, it is pertinent to note that persons are employed into the service at one time and in some other time such persons do exit the service due to one reason or the other either retirement, transfer, withdrawal from service etc. This is why government from to time do recruit and offer appointments to prospective candidates to fill in the vacant positions with a view to keep the government’s work going. This again, signifies the importance of recruitment as a government tool for increasing the workforce by hiring candidates with the right qualification, attitude and enthusiasm to demonstrate commitment on the job. The Nigerianization of the civil service was coated with the perpetuated problems of sectionalism; nepotism and tribalism which according to scholars such as [2] could be traced from the rationalization and popular purges which gave birth to competitions among ethnicities in the country who want to favor their ethnic clans. These issues ever since then became very critical and never left the Nigerian public service. This paper focuses on the nature of recruitment and selection in the Nigerian public service, as well as the contributory factors to the inadequacies of the exercise. Going further, the paper will offer some suggestions on how to tackle the dilemma Every organization depends on the effective use of its available resources in order to achieve its objectives. These resources, if they are to be effectively utilized, should be obtained in the right quantity, right quality, and at the right time.
However, the human resources is considered as the most important, most valuable, most complicated and the least predicable. It is this resource that processes other resources in order that the results of these processes would constitute the goals of the organization (Mukoro, 2005). Thus, every organization regardless of its size, product or service must recruit applicants to fill vacant positions. The efficiency and effectiveness of any organization whether private or public sector largely depend on the calibre of the work force The availability of a competent and effective labour force does not just happen by chance but through an articulated job analysis and recruitment exercise. The personnel employed in an organization serve as the hub around which other resources revolve. This allows the entire wheel of the organization to turn smoothly in order to perform more effectively, efficiently and economically. This is the reason why the personnel employed in any organization who eventually becomes the bread-winners of his family and an instrument of progress for the society, have to be well structured (Vickerstaff in Mukoro, 2005). Recruitment for any organization is very important right through the entire lifespan of that organization. In the civil service for example that is governmentally controlled, especially in third world countries, governments should ever be self-advised that good organization structure does not by itself guarantee good performance. There is the need therefore to match organizations or the civil service with very sound and quality staff so that performance would become more effective. Indeed, target setting; performance measurement and monitoring will be affected without the necessary impetus giving to systematic recruitment and selection mechanisms.
1.1 Statement Of The Problem
Human resource is the soil of any organization. This is so because the development survival or demise of any organization depends of people, their competencies and the process largely on the performance of its human resources. It is in line with this that the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has said that the Senate will accelerate the passage of a bill that will curb the rate of illegal recruitment in government agencies. Saraki said that the bill titled, “Existing Vacancies in the Federal Civil Service (Prohibition) Bill” will be one of the bill that will receive accelerated passage upon the resumption of the National Assembly.
The Nigerian federal civil service emphasizes uniformity, standardization, transparency (Babaru, 2003) in recruiting competent applicants. Despite the elaborate provisions in the constitution as well as the civil service rules and regulations as regards the mode of recruitment and selection into the service, the staff composition of most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) reveals that mediocre and quacks’ get recruited against the tenets of merit and technical competence rooted in Max Weber’s ideal bureaucracy (Eneanya, 2009). It is on this premise that the researcher intend to investigate the employment procedure and its effect on government parastatals.
1.3 Objective Of The Study
The main objective of the study is to assess the employment procedure and its effects on government parastatals, but to aid the completion of the study, the researcher intends to achieve the following sub-objectives;
- To ascertain the effect of employment procedure on government pararstatals
- To examine the role of the senate in ensuring a transparent recruitment process in government sector
- To ascertain the impact of transparent recruitment process on the productivity of the parastatals
- To ascertain the relationship between recruitment process and job performance
1.4 Research Hypotheses
To aid the completion of the study, the following research hypotheses was formulated by the researcher;
H0: Employment procedure does not have any effect on workers’ productivity
H1: Employment procedure does have effect on workers’ productivity
H02: The senate does not play any role in ensuring a transparent recruitment process in government sector
H2: The senate does play a significant role in ensuring a transparent recruitment process in government sector
1.5 Significance Of The Study
It is believed that at the completion of the study, the findings will be of great importance to the management of federal government parastatals, as the study seek to enumerate the merit of transparent recruitment process in the government parastatals, the study will also be of benefit to the federal government in their choice of appointment of public office holders into vecant positions, the study will also be of importance to researchers who intends to embark on a study in a similar topic, finally the study will be of great importance to the student, teachers, lecturers and the general public as the study will add to the pool of existing literature
1.6 Scope And Limitation Of The Study
The scope of the study covers employment procedure and it effect on government parastatals, but in the cause of the study there were some factors which limited the scope of the study;
a) Availability Of Research Material:
The research material available to the researcher is insufficient, thereby limiting the study
b) Time:
The time frame allocated to the study does not enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic activities and examinations with the study.
c) Finance:
The finance available for the research work does not allow for wider coverage as resources are very limited as the researcher has other academic bills to cover.
1.7 Definition Of Terms
Employment
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee.
Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, often a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators
Pararstatals
A company or agency owned or controlled wholly or partly by the government
Organization Of The Study
This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows
- Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study.
- Chapter two highlight theoretical framework on which the study its based, thus the review of related literature.
- Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study.
- Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.
- Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study.
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