Eradicating ghost workers from Federal Government’s payroll is not in sight just yet, with the disclosure by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission last month that it had detected additional 37,395 of such anomalies. This came barely two months after the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, had told the Senate Committee on Finance that 23,000 ghost workers were discovered through the use of the Bank Verification Number. Government must buck this trend of siphoning public funds by bureaucrats via the payroll.
Altogether, the Muhammadu Buhari administration, in less than a year, has uncovered 60,395 ghost workers, it should continue to deepen the clean-up of the payroll, which the immediate past government began with the introduction of biometric data capturing of workers, through the use of the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System device.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in October 2014, as Minister of Finance, said the process had weeded out 60,000 ghost workers, stressing that N160 billion was saved annually by that reform. Further discovery of such phantom names by the present administration, even more than the figure she revealed, means the organised fraud syndicates cream off about N320 billion annually from the payroll.
Undoubtedly, such illegal raid on public treasury is amazing, but even more shocking is the unwillingness of government to bring the masterminds to book. “We have handed over the matter to the ICPC to investigate those that are culpable and prosecute them. We are ready to give them the information that we have,” Okonjo-Iweala had said. Her successor, Adeosun, made a similar avowal in February this year – passing of information to the investigative agencies for action.
The culture of crime without punishment has festered for too long in the country; and it is the foundation of impunity that is ravaging all facets of our national life. But the present government’s resolve to frontally tackle corruption should be leveraged by the anti-graft agencies to fish out the fraudsters behind this mind-boggling scam. We frown on the labelling of the fraudsters as “ghost workers” when they are well known humans.
Payment voucher preparation either in government or private sector is a painstaking assignment, carried out with all checks and balances. For sure, the names on the payroll are inserted by relevant officials, approved by relevant authorities, and those who collect the money at the banks are now being spotted with the BVN device. According to Adeosun, the use of BVN exposed the links of some individuals to multiple accounts; while, in other instances, the name on the BVN was inconsistent with that on the payroll. Most state bureaucracies are in the same hell-hole even as the states face financial crunch.
This well embedded irregularity in the civil service will continue if nobody is punished. We hold the permanent secretaries, directors and heads in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies responsible for this sleaze. The present minister of finance should not only be concerned about getting the ghost names off the payroll, but should follow through with the investigation and prosecution of those found culpable. This is the only way to permanently weed them out from the system.
For effect, the ministry should publish the names of workers linked to multiple salary accounts by the BVN; and the level of involvement of the MDAs in a naming-and-shaming strategy. This is a damn good innovation that could help in containing this contagion. Vices such as payroll fraud, non-adherence to due process and bloated workforce have made it difficult for the bureaucracy to act truly as a vehicle for service delivery.
The Transparency International corruption perception index was therefore spot-on in 2013 when it rated public officials/civil servants as the third most corrupt in Nigeria, next to the police and political parties. Earlier, its report on “Bribe Payers Index” stated, “Corrupt civil servants in oil-rich Nigeria pocketed some $3.2 billion in bribes in 2010/2011 financial year alone.” That corruption is rampant in the civil service is even an under-statement; it has become its soul.
The purge of the civil service payroll on a serious note began in 2010; and it led to the discovery of 20,000 fake workers in the police force that year. A total of N6 billion was reportedly swindled. The Inspector-General of Police at the time, Hafiz Ringim, declared, “Police paymasters, officers in charge of Mechanised Salary Section, accountants as well as Divisional Police Officers have been named in the conspiracy.”
But we have Information Communications Technology to thank for the 120,395 so-called ghost workers discovered in the civil service from the Goodluck Jonathan administration to date, for which N320 billion is being saved annually. We believe that if the ICT culture is deeply entrenched in the civil service and followed by a radical restructuring of the system, the payroll scam will wane. All that is required to achieve this is political will. Buhari is urged to demonstrate this now to make a difference.
