28th July, 2016
The Sokoto State Government said on Thursday that it had discovered no fewer than 12,915 ‘ghost workers’ padded into the payrolls of the 23 local government areas of the state.
Alhaji Mannir Dan-Iya, the Commissioner for Local Government and Community Development, disclosed this at a media briefing in Sokoto.
“The ministry, through the monitoring department and other stakeholders have concluded a local government junior staff verification of about 58,143 workers, comprising of scheduled and unscheduled staff.
“The verification exercise yielded fruitful result, whereby about 12, 915 workers, comprising of seat-at-home and ghost workers were fished out of the local governments’ staff payrolls.
“The state government also saved over N 319 million from the exercise, hence, it was a huge success,” he said.
Dan-Iya said that the ministry is planning to conduct a similar verification exercise of senior staff, whose salaries are paid through their respective banks.
He also said that issues that arose from the exercise, mostly associated with ” human errors” were being addressed in collaboration with stakeholders.
Dan-Iya added that the ministry had boosted the internally generated revenues of the local governments by engaging consultants.