Ibrahim Kassim, the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Bauchi State, Monday, disclosed that the present administration has discovered no fewer than 6,418 ghost workers on its payroll.
The workers, according to Kassim, have been on the government’s payroll since 2019 when Bala Mohammed, the governor of Bauchi State took the leadership mantle.
Five thousand ghost workers were discovered on the local government payroll and the rest 1,418 were on the state government’s payroll, according to the SSG.
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“Local governments were paying N3.2 billion before, but now, it is N2.9 billion,” Kassim said. “And for the state service, we are currently paying N2.8 billion monthly as salaries, including pensions, which is over N50 million as against the N3.5 billion that was initially being paid.”
“When the committee was set up, the state government was paying over 32,000 employees but as of today, we are paying 28,789. We were able to remove 1,418 in the state. For the local government, 53,000 people were being paid by our 20 LGAs but today, we have 48,000. So, we have removed 5,000 from the payroll of the local government. We are cleaning it up and it is a work in progress,” Kassim added.
He noted that the figure is subject to changes “because I’m sure if you ask us at the end of this month, we’ll tell you one or two things that will bring down the wage because it is an ongoing process. But what is important is for everyone to know that the state government is paying salaries to workers as and when due.”
The SSG vowed that the state government would not relent in fishing out those with a hand in the ghost workers syndrome and for the prosecution of those found culpable in the whole problem which has led to the loss of hundreds of millions from the state treasury.
In 2021, the state government claimed it saved a total sum of N763,792,664 after 1,115 ghost workers were removed from its payroll.
