Civil Servants Back Govt’s Move To Flush Out Ghost Workers

THE ongoing investigation into the activities of ghost workers in the federal civil service took a twist on Thursday when representatives of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) backed the move after a meeting with government officials in Abuja.

The Guardian learnt that the ASCSN members were invited to a meeting with top officials of the Federal Ministry of Finance led by the Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, for an update on the ongoing probe of the Federal Civil Service.

According to a source that was part of the meeting, ASCSN representatives at the meeting expressed shock and disbelief at the sheer weight of evidence against certain category of civil servants, financial institutions and Pension Fund Administrators (PFA) alleged to have ripped off the Federal Government through a coordinated salary scam.

According to the source, the representatives had stormed the meeting suspecting witch-hunt or deliberate plans by the Federal Government to reduce the workforce but were taken aback when they were confronted with evidence to show that certain categories of people had been drawing salary whereas their names were not on the nominal staff register of the Federal Civil Service.

The source disclosed that in order to allay the fears of the workers’ union that the exercise wasn’t intended to lay off workers arbitrarily, the Finance Minister showed the union officials some documents generated by the probe panel so far. These, according to the source, included letters written to some ministries and parastatals for information on personnel cost.

“The revelations generated by these letters are mind-boggling, as evidences showed that most of the names of some individuals which featured on government’s payroll on a monthly basis do not exist on the nominal register of those ministries and departments.”

“For instance, out of 24 of such workers being investigated in the Federal Ministry of Works, whose names appeared on the payroll, only the name of one staff corresponds with file and nominal roll; the names of 11 other staff are not in the nominal roll but are on the ministry’s payroll, while the names of 12 staff are on the ministry’s payroll and on nominal roll with file numbers not corresponding with their names, an indication that the other 23 workers are either ghost workers or have incomplete Bank Verification Number (BVN) registration,” the source said.

A similar exercise was said to have been carried out in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation where seven staff members were investigated so far, and according to the report forwarded to the Minister of Finance, only one of those investigated has his name both in the nominal roll and payroll. The other six have their names on the payroll but the names are not in the nominal roll.

The Guardian learnt that the Secretary of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Mr. Isaac Ojemhenke, who led the union’s delegation, praised the Minister for the painstaking effort to ensure fairness in the ongoing exercise.

He was said to have noted that if previous administrations had been sensitive to consult with labour unions before any fundamental issue like the current one was tackled, the nation wouldn’t have suffered untold economic problems like in the past.

Ojemhenke reportedly said the union would not in any way make case for any worker proved to have been involved in the fraud.

He, however, appealed to the minister to ensure that modalities for the planned dismissal of indicted staff be made available to the workers’ union, a plea which The Guardian learnt was not granted by the Minister.