11,000 Ghost Workers Discovered On FG Payroll

The Federal Government has uncovered 11,000 ghost workers on its payroll in its second batch of staff audit.

This new discovery is coming on the heels of the 23,000 ghost workers that were deleted from the government’s payroll in February.

Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, made the disclosure on Wednesday at the end of a meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Again, we are using computer techniques to identify those who we need to investigate.

“So, we are now looking at the second batch and as we resolve those cases we would inform you of the amount saved and the number of people removed.’’

She said the 23,000 ghosts initially exorcised from federal payroll has reduced salary bill by N2.29billion per month.

She said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the implementation of the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audits of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to strengthen control over government finances.

According to her,the presidential initiative was in line with the President’s budget speech, where he pledged to introduce a continuous audit process, particularly in respect of payroll.

The World Bank has indicated its interest in assisting the Federal Government in the implementation of the audit process, she added.

The Minister stated that the council deliberated extensively about the need for the effective implementation of the audit process.

She said FEC had also agreed that the control framework over finance and spending of government’s money needed to be strengthened especially in anticipation of the approval of the budget, which she described as “an extended budget”.

“If we don’t strengthen our controls then there is a risk that that money would leak or that be applied to the wrong things and therefore, the ability to go into various agencies without notice and check and do audits and updates to make sure that public money is being spent in accordance with our expectations and objectives.

“FEC approved the setting up of this initiative effectively using an executive order to create internal audit to enable us (to) continue this work and to extend it to everywhere that federal money is being spentor received so that we can have better oversight.’’

Adeosun said that no additional staff would be recruited for the implementation of the audit process, adding that government would be using existing staff, qualified accountants within the office of the Accountant General and the Federal Civil Service