- It’s high time the officials spawning ghost workers are prosecuted
Just as well that the finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, has said what should rightly be said about the discovery of another round of ghost workers in the country’s federal civil service. According to the minister, those behind the payment to the ghost workers – the banks and ministries’ officials – are to be prosecuted. This is good talk.
But we have to wait until the matter is pursued to its logical conclusion before commending the action because this is not the first time we are hearing of the existence of ghost workers in the civil service, whether at the federal level or even in the states. As a matter of fact, it is not unlikely that there would be many ghost workers even in the local governments; the snag is we hardly look in that direction because we often think there is not much to steal at that level.
Mrs Adeosun who made the latest disclosure on the ghost workers when she appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance to defend her ministry’s budget said the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System were instrumental to the discovery. “As we speak now, we have about 23,000 that we need to investigate; those whom either the BVN is linked to multiple payments or the name on the BVN account is not consistent with the name on our own payroll.
“If we are able to get everybody onto the BVN platform, we will be able to save a considerable amount of personnel cost”, she said.
It is inconceivable that any worker in the country’s public service would still be collecting salaries without having BVN despite the massive campaign for all account holders to key into the platform or have restrictions placed on some aspects of the accounts. Definitely, something is fishy here. We cannot rule out collusion between some banks’ staff and some senior Federal Government workers if workers without BVN are still receiving salaries.
It is regrettable that the country keeps losing huge chunks of money to the so-called ghost workers. But we must not stop at the point of lamenting why the nation has become a fertile ground to breed ghost workers, we must ensure that those responsible for such economic adversity are properly identified and prosecuted. This is the missing link since we have been hearing revelations about ghost workers. As with many other crimes, those involved are hardly punished. After the initial noise about the discovery, and the subsequent threats of fire and brimstone, nothing is heard on the matter again until another round of revelations is made.
The Muhammadu Buhari administration should have no room for that kind of corruption not just because the economy is in dire straits and we need to track every kobo belonging to the government, but because there should be zero tolerance for corruption. There is no amount of investment we may make on technology to check the crime, if this is not followed by the appropriate lessons and punishment, those involved would continue to grow fat at the expense of the state.
Ordinarily, there should not be any serious cases of ghost workers, particularly in the Federal Civil Service after the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System by the former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Under her, about 46,821 ghost workers were identified in 215 of the federal ministries, departments and agencies, thus saving the government billions of naira.
But alas! We have been proved wrong. We have now seen that no matter the technology deployed, we will still find ghost workers in our system. It seems we must stop deodorizing the issue simply by referring to the phenomenon as ‘ghost workers’ because this diminishes its toxicity. Ghosts cannot collect, let alone spend salaries. So, we must go after all those running the chain, from the bankers to their accomplices in the civil service, if we want an end to that type of corruption.
