The Abia State Government has removed about 2300 ghost workers detected in the state’s payroll.
The discovery which has saved the state over N200 million on the monthly wage bill, followed an ongoing verification of civil servants and other public workers.
The state Accountant General, Njum Onyemenam, revealed that the saving was made using a unified payment system.
In a statement on Monday, Kazie Uko, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Alex Otti, the state Accountant General, Njum Onyemenam, revealed that workers had received the payment of April salaries as well as June pensions to retirees.
The State Accountant General, said the verification exercise was still ongoing and that the government hopes to make more savings.
“So far, we have been able to save N220 million from the ongoing verification of workers in the state, local governments and pensioners. Not less than 2,300 ghost names have been weeded out of the payrolls, using the unified payment system and we hope to still identify more as we continue with the exercise.”
She confirmed that following Governor Otti’s directive, government had last week paid the arrears of April salaries, left behind by the immediate past administration and also June pensions to retirees.
“Also, local government staff, who had been skipped when the June salaries were paid, due to their failure to submit their verified payment schedule, will receive their salaries this week,” Onyemenam said.
