Kogi uncovers 300 ghost workers on payroll

The Kogi State Government says over 300 ghost workers have again found their way into its payroll.

The state Head of Service, Mrs Deborah Ogunmola, disclosed this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lokoja on Thursday.

She said that the development was at the centre of the meeting she held with permanent secretaries and directors of finance and administration in the state civil service on Dec. 26.

According to her, the ghost workers are mainly those not cleared during the screening exercise conducted by the state government.

“Some state civil servants were recently dropped from salary in August because they were not cleared in 2016,” she said.

Ogunmola appealed to workers to refrain from acts that could undermine the efforts being made by the present administration to clean up the payroll and restore the integrity of the civil service.

She said that the civil service reform carried out by the Gov. Yahaya Bello-led administration was the most thorough and result-driven in the history of the state.

The head of service assured workers who had been cleared but had yet to be returned to the payroll that they would soon have a cause to smile.

“The report is ready and awaiting approval by the governor,” she said.

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On the pay parade conducted in 2018, Ogunmola described it as successful to a large extent, adding, however, that more still needed to be done to plug some loopholes.

She lamented that names of some deceased workers still kept on appearing on the payroll, blaming this on saboteurs within.

Ogunmola also cited the case of a woman who retired in 2016 and was recently discovered to be drawing salary and pension at the same time from the state government.

The head of service called for increased vigilance on the part of the permanent secretaries and directors to safeguard the system from unscrupulous elements.

She then directed the permanent secretaries and directors to raise variation order to remove names of the deceased and retired staff from payroll.

(NAN)