The Abia State Government says it discovered 2300 ghost workers in its payroll system and has saved over N220 million on monthly wage bills following ongoing verification of civil servants and other public workers in the state.
State Accountant General, Deaconess Njum Onyemenam made this in Umuahia, stating that the huge savings was made using a unified payment system.
Onyemenam, who spoke after a meeting with the state Governor, Dr. Alex Otti Monday, said that the verification exercise is still ongoing and that the state government had expressed its hopes to make more savings.
“So far, we have been able to save N220 million from the ongoing verification of workers in the state, local governments and pensioners.
“Not less than 2,300 ghost names have been weeded out of the payrolls, using the unified payment system and we hope to still identify more as we continue with the exercise,” the Accountant General said.
She confirmed that following Governor Otti’s directive, last week that workers should be paid the arrears of April salaries left behind by the immediate past administration as well as June pensions to retirees.
The AG also disclosed that local government staff who had been skipped when the June salaries were paid, due to their failure to submit their verified payment schedule, will receive their salaries this week, Onyemenam said.
