Abia govt uncovers 558 ghost workers

[MrVan]

ABIA State government yesterday discovered 558 ghost workers in the state civil service, whose monthly salary amounted to over N20million.

Vanguard

[emezico]

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ABIA State government yesterday discovered 558 ghost workers in the state civil service, whose monthly salary amounted to over N20million.

Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Chief Don Ubani, who announced this to newsmen, said the discovery was made in the first phase of government's staff salary verification.

Ubani said the 558 ghost staff were found on the staff pay-roll of the state with a total salary of N20, 098,601.22, an amount he lamented had fraudulently vanished monthly from the coffers of the government.

It would be recalled that worried by fraudulent padding of salaries through ghost workers, Governor Theodore Orji engaged consultants to carry out biometric enumeration of the workers in the state.

Some of the workers, mainly from the local government, made attempts to frustrate the exercise until the governor wielded the big stick by suspending some senior personnel of the councils.

Ubani, who spoke on the outcome of the state executive council meeting, also disclosed that the council observed with pain that discipline in the state civil service was being eroded.

He blamed this on "the non-challant attitude of senior civil and public officers to punctuality and regularity".

To this end, the council, he said, had directed the Head of Service to issue a mandatory circular for all workers to sign attendance register in the morning and at close of work.

The council also condemned the habit of some permanent secretaries who deployed staff to the ministries they were transferred, saying the situation was not acceptable to the government.


Vanguard