The Governor of Benue State, Hyacinth Alia, announced that 2500 ghost workers were discovered during the first phase of the state’s staff verification and payroll audit for teachers and Local Government employees.
This is stated in a statement signed by Alia’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS) Tersoo Kula on Thursday in Makurdi.
“2,500 ghost workers were discovered during the first phase of staff verification and payroll audit for Primary and Secondary School Teachers as well as Local Government workers.”
“Since then, the payroll has been cleaned up, and the names of the ghost workers have been removed.”
“The government also discovered phantom schools, double dipping, illegal employment, salary padding, payments to deceased or retired individuals, and illegal replacements,” the governor said.
He expressed regret for the delay in paying primary and secondary school teachers, as well as Local Government employees.
According to Governor Hyacinth Alia, the decision to postpone salary payments was made after the government discovered mindless padding of the wage bill and other fraudulent manipulations on their payroll.
He assured those who had been screened that they would be paid by the end of the week.
“We are not only removing ghost workers and the padding associated with payroll fraud. “We are putting in measures to protect the system in the future,” he said.