Nasarawa government uncovers 200 ghost workers in payroll

No fewer than 200 ghost workers have been uncovered on the Payroll Vouchers (PV) of various Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Nasarawa State.

Commissioner for Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Haruna Osegba, disclosed this at the weekend during a Joint Account Committee meeting in Lafia.

Osegba said the discovery was made possible during a recent PV system upgrade, adding: “The system deleted the names based on 2013 biometric data capturing exercise.

“The implication was that the affected persons must have altered their records to still remain in service when they were supposed to have retired.”

He lamented that in spite of the fact that workers were retiring every year, salary figures remained the same over the years.

He urged chairmen of councils to communicate to the ministry whenever any staff retired to enable them to remove such persons name from the PV.

He noted that fraud has pushed the state government into huge debts forcing the ministry to augment its federal allocation for the month of March with N404 million to enable it pay 100 per cent salary to council workers.

Osegba, therefore, said after statutory deductions, the ministry was left with N1. 7 billion.

Earlier, Chairman, Lafia Local Government Area, Aminu Maifata, moved a motion to for the ministry to augment the allocation to enable it pay full salaries.