Bauchi State government says that it has removed no fewer than 6,418 ghost workers from its payroll since the inception of the Bala Mohammed administration in 2019.
The government said following this development, it saves N1 billion monthly for both the local and state government payments of salaries.
The Secretary to the Bauchi State government, Ibrahim Kassim, who disclosed this at a press conference held at the New Government House, on Monday, explained that while 5,000 ghost workers were removed from the local government payroll, 1,418 were removed from that of the state government; adding that in the state service, N700 million is saved monthly while N300 million is saved at the state.
“Local governments were paying N3.2 billion before, but now, it is N2.9 billion. 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 work in progress.
“This is not an absolute figure 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, bill 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.”
He vowed that the state government would go after those who have a hand in the ghost workers syndrome in the state in order to prosecute those found culpable in the whole problem which has led to the loss of hundreds of millions by the state government.
“There have been complains that we should go after them. We will, but you see, you’ll have to finish the process so that you don’t get distracted. If you want to go far, you don’t stop and throw stones at every dog that barks. We will go after them because it is people’s money.”
Punch
