The permanent secretary of the ministry of interior, Alhaji Abubakar Magaji, has said that the inability of the Nigeria Immigrations Service (NIS) ill-fated recruitment victims’ relations to commence work after issuance of appointment letters was necessitated by “procedural errors” caused by the presidential committee on the incident.

Magaji disclosed this on Tuesday when he along with others appeared before the an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives set up to probe NIS’ failure to employ relations of the victims as directed by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The permanent secretary, in his presentation, declared that neither the ministry, nor the Civil Defense, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Board (CDFIPB) was carried along in the ill-fated recruitment exercise in 2013.

This, according to Magaji, has led to the present predicament of the victims’ relations, who are the beneficiaries of a presidential directive on automatic employment as compensation to the bereaved families.

They have all been given their letters of appointment since March, but could not start work ever since, which the permanent secretary blamed on non-provision of funds as salaries for the new recruits in the ministry’s 2015 budget.

He said after issuing the appointment letters, the ministry had to halt the process since there was no written approval by the President for the employment.

“We are also hearing it from media. There was no letter directing us to employ this person or this number of people,” he added.