- When will government name and shame those involved?
Nigeria may soon earn the appellation as the land of ghost workers. The irony and ribaldry of it all have become so lost on us that the Federal Government now presents the unveiling of the bizarre phenomenon to the public as some kind of achievement.
Many state governments now set up elaborate committees at huge costs to investigate the scourge of ghosts that have infiltrated their workforce and of course, the payrolls. Benue, Niger, Sokoto, Rivers, Ekiti and Kogi states are known to have recent challenge of ghosts among the workforce. Federal agencies like the police, Customs, Immigrations, Pensions, to name a few, are all scourged by spooks.
But the Federal Government is surely the most afflicted. Just last week, Mr. Shehu Garba, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, had announced with flourish the huge success the current administration has made in cleaning the payroll of fairies.
Shehu revealed that 11 persons believed to be members of a syndicate responsible for the presence of 50,000 ghost workers on the Federal Government’s payroll had been apprehended and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He explained that the Efficiency Unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance created by the present administration was able to uncover 50,000 ghost workers and saved the nation the sum of N13 billion monthly. This, according to him, cumulated to about N143 billion in 2016.
Shehu: “The flagship programme of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to rid the system of fraud and instill good governance is on course.
“Through the notable initiative… the government has embarked on the continuous auditing of the salaries and wages of government departments.
“When the committee was constituted in February 2016, the Federal Government’s monthly salary bill was N151 billion, excluding pensions.
“Now, the monthly salary warrant is N138 billion, excluding pensions which means that government is making a monthly savings of about N13 billion. This amounts to N143 billion from February 2016 to date.”
A few questions arise here: in June 2013, former finance minister, Mrs. NgoziOkonjo-Iweala, had announced so gleefully how the administration of the day had rid the federal civil service of about 47,000 ghosts. It was at the introduction of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS). Would this be an additional batch of 50,000 ghost workers in which case 97,000 ghouls have been rid of our service in the last three years, or is this part of the 47,000 from the last administration?
Again, just as no culprits were apprehended then, same way only nameless members of a so-called syndicate have been held.
In the first place, it is preposterous that government would keep citing the routing of ghost workers as some kind of achievement in office. And it can be said to be dastardly that the federal payroll has been breached to the tune of N13 billion per month for years, yet no culprit is apprehended or prosecuted.
It is reprehensible that all the people in charge of preparing payrolls in affected ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and all the authorities who sign off on all the pay documents are still keeping their jobs.
With vast improvements in biometric technology and the introduction of Treasury Single Account (TSA), the bank verification Number (BVN) and the IPPIS, it is pretty easy to detect payroll fraud these days.
We think it is a huge joke on the government sounding triumphant over a matter that calls for economic emergency and mass arrests and purge in the civil service. It is as well an insult on the populace to have to listen to ‘ghost’ stories like this all the time.
If the Federal Government does not want to deal with this heinous crime, let it hold its peace. Government makes a mockery of itself telling these endless ghost tales.
