Niger State government has said it has uncovered 1,000 ghost workers on its payroll after a staff-verification exercise in Minna.

The government also said that N100 million had been saved from exercise.

Speaking while submitting its reports, the Chairman Committee on Civil Servants Salary Management and Verification, Engr. Ibrahim Mohammed Panti said a lot of discrepancies and malpractices were discovered in the payment of salaries to civil servants.

“The discrepancies discovered in the course of the committee’s work included duplication of Bank Verification Number (BVN), multiple bank accounts number of some staff, duplication of civil servants control and identification numbers as well as some staff names appearing in payment vouchers but could not be found in the nominal roll in the office of the Head of Service.

“The state’s staff strength of over 27,000 has so far been reduced to 26,000,” adding that discrepancies were also found in the payment of staff grade levels due to the different figures in payment vouchers.

He added that out of the 95 Ministries, Departments and Agencies that were asked to submit their staff list, only 42 complied, saying “the committee will not pay October salary to any of the MDAs that refuse to submit theirs on or before 2nd October.”

He emphasised that the exercise was meant to block the leakages in salary payment to civil servants and not to witch-hunt anyone, stressing that anyone who feels aggrieved or affected by the exercise negatively was free to approach the committee.

Engineer Panti disclosed that when the exercise was completed, the government might be in position to implement the N30,000 new minimum wage. (Saturday Sun)

Update news