Kampala — BILLIONS of shillings of taxpayers' money have been paid to non-existent government employees in the last six months, a new report by the Ministry of Finance, has revealed.

Releasing highlights of the draft report on corruption in the districts and government departments to journalists at the Media Centre in Kampala yesterday, the Commissioner Budget, Policy and Evaluations in the Finance Ministry, Mr Kenneth Mugambe, said at least 6,000 ghost workers were discovered on the government payrolls.

As a result the government has been losing billions of shillings to pay non-existent workers.

"The draft report released cites the dead and transferred employees were still on the payroll," he said.

After deleting the ghost workers from the payroll this financial year, Mugambe said the treasury would be able to save Shs15 billion monthly.

He said Shs15 billion is enough to build 15-health centres countrywide each at Shs1billion.

Mugambe, the minister of Local Government, Mr Kahinda Otafiire and the Permanent Secretary, Mr Vincent Ssekkono, were at the media centre to explain why government has delayed to release the July pay cheque for civil servants.

After the clean up, he said the treasury had released Shs73 billion to pay salary arrears.

The wage bill for the government workers this financial year is Shs962 billion.

A team of investigators from the Ministry of public service, Finance and other government agencies tasked to clean up the payroll made impromptu visits to work places verifying the number of employees.

The government appointed a team of investigators after learning that some accounting officers were still maintaining dead and transferred employees on payrolls for personal gains.

This is not the first time taxpayers' money is lost in dubious payments to ghost employees. After cleaning up the payroll in 1991/1992, countrywide, 60,000 ghost workers were discovered.

The UPDF also came into the spotlight over ghosts.

Gen. David Tinyefuza was tasked to investigate the ghost soldier' scam in the UPDF and came up with a report in late 2003.

The report implicated several soldiers. And many were variously charged before the General Court Martial chaired by Gen. Elly Tumwine.

Ssekkono said better service delivery in districts would only be realised if the central government takes over the role of recruitment of accounting officers.