THE Bauchi State Government on Monday says it has discovered 596 dead workers including pensioners in the state’s civil service payroll system.
This was achieved through the staff verification exercise conducted recently by the state.
Adamu Gumba, Chairman of the Bauchi State Authentication Exercise Committee revealed this during a briefing with the media, at the state capital in Bauchi.
According to him, the accused persons were until the new discovery receiving salaries among other benefits from the states for several years.
In a report by Channels, failure of the concerned persons to come up for verification, after about 4,000 employees were listed on the payroll system, however, aided the discovery.
Gumba added that the suspects were initially placed under watch, adding that the committee already finished the responsibility assigned to it, and is to submit its findings with a list of appropriate recommendations.
“The state government inaugurated the committee to authenticate over 30,000 workers and pensioners after it found out that most of them were without the Bank Verification Number (BVN),” the report stated.
Meanwhile, in October last year, the Bauchi state government had raised an alarm that it discovered 41, 000 ghost workers from 101, 000 of its civil servants on the payroll.
Bala Mohammed, the newly elected governor, observed the workers were without BVN, thus the need for proper verification.
But Bauchi is not the first to this. Sokoto state also made similar discovery until it decided to pardon last November 8, 000 ghost workers involved.
In September, last year, the Niger State government announced how it exposed 1, 000 ghost workers in the state public service, which reportedly saved it over N100 million.
The federal agencies and parastatals had also been duped by ghost workers for years until it resolved through the support of the World Bank to design the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS).
Through the IPPIS, 459 Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) had been captured as of June 2017.
In 2018, the federal government said it saved N208 billion from the exercise.
Though some government workers had threatened to boycott the system, President Muhammadu Buhari last year disclosed plans to cut salaries of those that fail to comply.
Olugbenga heads the Investigations Desk at The ICIR. Do you have a scoop? Shoot him an email at [email protected]. Twitter Handle: @OluAdanikin