Unbelievable! 4,000 ghost workers discover in Enugu State

The Enugu state government recently set up a local government audit panel to look into worker payrolls for the state. 

According to Today, the audit panel has discovered nearly 4,000 ghost workers in the 17 local government councils of the state. 

The panel revealed that 3,916 workers whose names were in the payment vouchers could not be traced. They submitted their report to the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, adding that this would save the state about N161, 494, 570 monthly or N1.938 billion annually. 

Hon. Edward Ubosi, who is the chairman of the panel and Speaker of the state House of Assembly, while presenting the report said that the money would be the difference in the wage bill now that the exercise had been completed. Ubosi said: 

“From the above, N64, 882, 033 and N96, 612, 337.20 from local government staff gross salaries and teachers’ salaries respectively should be regarded as monthly savings.” Governor Ugwuanyi, after he received the report, commended the panel for a job well done. 

He also said that the report would go a long way in helping the state government in the on-going efforts to track down ghost workers in the state public service. 

The committee also recommended that more teachers be engaged in the primary schools in the state. 

They also made 26 recommendations for consideration by the government among which is the removal of all staff in the system found out to have falsified their ages; impersonators, those in-capacitated by ill-health as well as those employed contrary to civil service rules. 

To curb the ghost worker trend, the committee also suggested general posting of local government staff after a bio-metric capturing exercise to ensure discipline in the system. 

Meanwhile, only recently despite the dwindling allocation from the Federal government, the Bauchi state government says it has discovered 6,065 ghost workers on its payroll. 

The state’s governor, Mohammed Abubakar, revealed this to newsmen during an interactive session with members of the correspondents’ chapel, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bauchi state council.