The Federal Government says it has removed 50,000 ghost workers from its payroll, and saved N13 billion monthly since February this year.
According to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the government also saves N1.1billion monthly from pension bill in the fight against corruption.
At an interactive session with State House correspondents to mark the end of the year, Shehu announced that an 11-man syndicate in connection with the ghost workers had been arrested and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“The flagship programme of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to rid the system of fraud and instil good governance is on course.
The Guardian reports that 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, the Federal Government’s 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 media aide added that “the pension bill was N15.5billion monthly as at February. Now it is down to N14.4 billion, which means average monthly saving is made of about N1.1 billion.”
Shehu put the total number of ghost workers so far removed from the payroll around 50,000. With the lightening of the government wage bill through the tightening of the financial system, the government will have more funds at its disposal to attend to more important needs of governance. It will also check the spectre of unpaid or delayed salaries that hangs over federal government workers in recent times.
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