The Benue State Government has discovered almost 2,500 fake workers and ghost schools on its payroll.
According to the government, the finding occurred during the recently completed first round of its personnel verification and payroll audit for all teachers and local government employees.
Tersoo Kula, the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, released a statement Thursday in Makurdi blaming the delay in paying school teachers and local government employees on the verification procedure.
The CPS, who conveyed the Governor’s concern about the delay, stated “the governor says the decision for the delay in the payment of salaries of the above mentioned workers was taken after the government discovered mindless padding of the wage bill, and other fraudulent manipulations on their payroll.
“The decision became necessary after the discovery, to enable the government sanitize and cleanse the payroll; to ascertain the true wage bill of the state and to know the genuine workers that are worth their wages.
“The first phase of the extensive staff verification and payroll audit for all teachers and local government staff has just been concluded, and it has already uncovered over 2,500 ghost workers that have already been removed from the payroll.
“The Governor identifies ghost workers, ghost schools, double dipping, unlawful employment, salary padding, payment to dead or retired individuals, unlawful replacement, inflation of the wage bill, as some of the payroll infractions discovered from the audit.
“He assures that, workers who were successfully screened will receive their salaries before the end of this week, noting that government is not only fishing out ghosts workers and removing the padding associated with payroll fraud, but also putting in measures to ensure the systems are protected going forward.”
cc: Vanguard Ng
