The Federal Government on Tuesday said it discovered 50,000 ghost
workers and in the process saved N200billion as N13 billion was taken
off the payroll monthly from February to December this year.
This
was disclosed by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media
and Publicity, Garba Shehu, when he spoke with State House
correspondents at an interactive meeting to mark the end of the year,
adding that 11 persons championing the syndicate of ghost workers have
been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
for trial.
“The flagship program of the Muhammadu Buhari
administration to rid the system of fraud and instil good governance is
on course. Through a notable initiative, the Efficiency Unit of the
Federal Ministry of Finance, the government has embarked on the
continuous auditing of the salaries and wages of government departments.
“When
the committee was constituted in February 2016, Federal government
monthly salary bill was N151 billion excluding pensions. Now the monthly
salary warrant is N138 billion, excluding pensions, which means that
the government is making a monthly saving of about N13 billion. That is
from February 2016 to date,” he said.
The Presidential spokesman
added that “the pension bill was 15.5bn monthly as at February. Now it
is down to N14.4 billion, which means average monthly saving is made of
about N1.1 billion.”
