The Kano State Government has effectively identified and removed 239 phantom workers from its payroll while 1,334 people have not yet been discovered.
The government is working to sanitise the payroll system, according to Secretary to the State Government, SSG, Alhaji Umar Faruk Ibrahim, who spoke about the update of a biometric data capture exercise that was carried out to clean the system and resulted in the discovery of multiple ghost workers at the state local government areas.
To combat corrupt practices in the public service, the administration decided to hold a biometric capture and pay parade, according to Ibrahim and Suleiman Wali, Special Adviser on Public Service Matters.
“The exercise was part of the government’s efforts to plug loopholes that allowed for the payment of salaries to ghost workers,” he said.
Umar Idris, the chairman of the Local Government Payroll Committee, revealed that the committee was established to scrutinise and correspond salary vouchers before effecting payment.
“The committee’s efforts led to the discovery of the 239 ghost workers who were fraudulently inserted into the payroll,” he stated.
The governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, has directed that the names of the ghost workers be deleted from the payroll. The decision aligns with the governor’s promise to close loopholes that facilitated corrupt practices in the payment of salaries.
“The removal of the ghost workers from the payroll is expected to save the state government over N27 million monthly. This amount will be put back into the coffers of the state government, allowing for more effective allocation of resources,” Idris said.
