Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia disclosed that at the first phase of staff verification and payroll audit for teachers and Local Government staff members in the state, 2500 ghost workers have been discovered.
In a statement released on Thursday in Makurdi, the details were disclosed and signed by Alia’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS) Tersoo Kula.
‘In the first phase of staff verification and payroll audit for Primary and Secondary School Teachers as well as Local Governments workers, 2,500 ghost workers were uncovered.’
‘The payroll has since been cleaned and names of the ghost workers have been removed.’
‘The government also uncovered phantom schools, double dipping, unlawful employment, salary padding, payment to dead or retired individuals and unlawful replacements,’ the governor said.
Regretfully, he addressed the issue of delayed salary payments for teachers in primary and secondary schools, along with the Local Government staff.
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Citing reasons for the delay in salary payments, the governor pointed to the government’s findings of mindless padding of the wage bill and other fraudulent manipulations on the payroll.
The governor gave his word to the screened workers that their salaries would be disbursed before the week’s end.
‘We are not only getting rid of ghost workers and removing the padding associated with payroll fraud. We are putting in measures to ensure the system is protected going forward, he said.
The governor’s dedication to uprooting corruption and ensuring transparent payroll management was evident in his determination to protect the rights of legitimate workers and promote efficiency within the state’s administrative processes.
The government had taken significant steps to rectify the situation and ensure that genuine workers receive their salaries promptly and without constraint.
As the names of the ghost workers were swiftly removed from the payroll, the government pledged to implement stringent measures to safeguard against future reoccurrence and ensure a transparent and reliable workforce management system.