The Ministry of Interior has denied charging fees from applicants seeking recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service.

Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Fatima Bamidele, said in a statement on Tuesday that the ministry did not collect N1,000 as processing fee from applicants as speculated.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service do not charge and will not accept money for jobs,” she said.

The permanent secretary explained that the current recruitment was in continuation of an earlier effort by the ministry to recruit officers manually into the Nigeria Immigration Service which was marred by controversies until it was discontinued.

“Consequently, a new ICT-based recruitment exercise had to be adopted for the purpose of fairness, transparency and accountability in line with the transformation agenda of the government,” she said.

According to the statement, a consultant was engaged to provide an Internet platform to enable applicants access the application forms that will enable the ministry process the applications.

It said the consultant was authorised to charge a maximum processing fee of N1,000 per applicant to cover the cost of scratch card to gain access to the site.

Bamidele said: “This is intended to save the applicants the cost of travelling to Abuja to submit their applications, as well as avoid other inherent risks including unauthorised middlemen activities and other abuses”

The statement further warned that “Anybody who demands for and accepts money or bribes for jobs into the services under the ministry will be appropriately sanctioned in line with extant regulations guiding discipline in the service.”