State Government uncovers 1,600 ghost workers

The Nasarawa State Government has discovered over 1,600 ghost workers on its payroll following the recent biometric data capture in the state.
Idris Yakubu, the Executive Director (North) of Skye Bank Plc, the consultancy company for the exercise, disclosed this on Wednesday in Lafia while presenting the report to Governor Umaru Al-Makura.
Yakubu explained that the company was engaged to carry out the exercise in 2014, but security situation delayed the delivery on the job.
He said the purpose of the exercise was to verify the existence of all persons on the state government payroll, capture the basic and biometric details of all civil servants and eliminate the existence of ghost workers.
He added that the exercise was also aimed at producing a clean data base for payroll administration in the state.
Yakubu said if the report was implemented, it would block leakages and save funds that could be used to create more job opportunities for the youth.
He said a monthly cost saving of about N83 million and approximately N1 billion could be achieved if the report was fully implemented by the state government.
He said the project was done at no cost to the government as part of the bank’s support to the development of the state.
Receiving the report, Al-Makura lauded the bank for its meticulous delivery on the assignment.
He said the report was timely because of the new trend of accountability in the country, which includes the Treasury Single Account and the Bank Verification Number.
The governor noted that previous exercises in the state aimed at checking fraud and cutting leakages were bedeviled by bureaucratic manipulations.
He, therefore, directed the Permanent Secretary of the Salary Bureau to study the report for immediate implementation.
NAN.