THE Chairman of Zamfara State workers' verification committee, Alhaji Ahmed Abubakar, says his committee has uncovered more than 7,000 ghost and redundant workers on the state government's payroll.
The committee was set up by the Zamfara State government in April 2012 to determine the authentic workforce of the state following agitation by the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for the implementation of 18,000 minimum wage.
Abubakar told Governor Abdulazeez Yari on Thursday while submitting an interim report of the committee that after a thorough audit of the workforce in the state, it was discovered that out of the 28,183 workers being paid salaries, only 21,067 were genuinely working for the state government.
He pointed out that while a lot of workers were collecting salaries without place of posting, thousands of non-existing and redundant workers bloated the state civil service pay roll.
Abubakar said the committee had also discovered that some workers smuggled their way into the state civil service, using forged certificates.
The committee cited an example of the state female education board where 2,388 workers were on the payroll but surprisingly, could only capture 1,539 workers in the verification exercise.
He lamented that more than 50 per cent of Government House staff members comprised of mainly 'the ghost and redundant' workers.
Other government establishments with large number of ghost workers included Ministries of Animal Health, Education, Teachers' Service, Arabic and Islamic, Hospital Services Management and Science and Technical Teachers' Boards.
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