New Telegraph

Niger uncovers 333 ‘dead civil servants’ on payroll

…paid N5bn to ghost workers in two years

Niger State government on Thursday disclosed that it has uncovered 333 certified “dead civil servants” who have been on the payroll of the state government for the past two years.
This is as the government revealed that the sum of N207million was paid as salaries every month to fake civil servants in the state amounting to about N5billion in the past two years.
Chairman of the Staff Verification Committee set up by the state government to fish out ghost workers from the State Civil Service, Engineer Ibrahim Mohammed Panti made this disclosure in an interview during a live radio programme monitored in Minna on Thursday, adding that the screening still continues and that more revelations are likely to unfold.

Engr. Panti, who is also the Commissioner for Works, said those mostly involved are Account Officers and other staff from the state Ministry of Health adding that they are among the 80 civil servants sacked last week by the government.
Accordingly, he said: “Out of the purported 27,000 civil servants on the payroll of the state government, only 15,907 of them have been discovered to be our genuine workers so far.

“There are 3,923 workers from different ministries still having pending issues and are still being investigated. These set of people had entered the state civil service with fictitious certificates and their names found on the payroll of the state.
“Within the last two years, 333 civil servants who had been certified dead were still drawing salaries from the state government and all this fraud must stop.”
Furthermore, Engineer Panti said 1,029 Civil Servants whose names are on the payroll are yet to appear for screening adding that by today which is the end of the screening, they will be officially declared as ghost workers if they refuse to appear before the screening committee.
The commissioner disclosed that all Civil Service rules were duly followed before they were dismissed.

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