Gombe govt uncovers 523 ghost workers, saves N1.5bn

The Gombe State Governor, Inuwa Yahaya, said on Thursday the state government had uncovered 523 ghost workers in the last three years.

The governor stated this during the induction of the newly recruited biometric supervisors in Gombe.

Yahaya, who was represented at the event by his deputy, Manassah Jatau, said the government saved about N1.5 billion from 523 workers who failed to show up for the civil servants’ verification exercise since October 2021.

He said the biometric management system was designed to address the uncertainty in the number of workers at both the state and local government levels.

He added that the deployment of 4,000 Biometric Machines Attendance Register across the state helped to address issues of ghost workers.

The governor said: “So far this novel initiative has saved the government a monthly sum of N23,758,858 since 2021.”

READ ALSO: Nigerian govt uncovers 1,618 ‘ghost workers’ with fake employment letters

On his part, the state Commissioner for Finance, Muhammad Magaji, said the government earned $4 million under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme.

He said the implementation of the biometric management system helped the state to meet certain international standards.

“Over 500 workers who do not contribute to productivity in Gombe State have been uncovered, saving about N24 million monthly with a cumulative saving of over N1 billion.

“The money earned through this exercise does not come to the government but rather channelled to payment of promotion arrears and outstanding gratuities.

“It cleared insinuations that the government was trying to reduce funds by taking workers out of the payroll,” the commissioner added.

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