By Bashir Mohammed
Kano
Kano state Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission has said that it had detected 1, 134 ghost workers with foreign names on the payroll of the state government.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the anti-graft agency, Mrs. Shabbana Abdul’aziz, in Kano yesterday.
According to the statement, the Commission was able to detect the names during an investigation it carried based on information made available to it.
The statement read in part: “This Commission, in the exercise of its powers under provision of Section 9 of the Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission Law 2008, as amended, initiated an investigation based on information which was made available to the Commission into an alleged insertion of foreign names into Kano state government payroll.”
It alleged that the investigation revealed that some staff of the Ministry of Finance connived with some local government officials to illegally insert thousands of ghost names as workers into the payroll of the state government.
It further alleged that the perpetrators of the illegal act took advantage of the e-payment system which unified and centralised salary payment of the entire state workers.
The statement added that most of the detected ghost workers bore fake offers of appointment and some could not explain where they worked.
“The Commission, therefore, requests the office of the state Head of Service to suspend salary payment of the detected names pending the completion of the investigation.
“This is necessary because of the strong evidence suggesting official corruption and abuse of office in their employment or insertion to the payroll.”
According to the statement, the Commission had also in the course of the investigation came across those inserted that claimed to have been transferred from other establishments, especially SUBEB.
“The Commission is now trying to determine the ingenuity or otherwise of their claims.”
