The Federal Government said it has saved a whopping N208 billion from Ghost Workers salaries following ongoing audit being carried out by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA). The Secretary of PICA, Dr. K. Diwa who stated this over the weekend at a seminar in Abuja for finance journalists, organised by the ministry of finance said in 2016 the committee saved a total of N 97,939,974,344 and in 2017 the amount saved was N110,461,098,196.
He explained that the amount was from the recovery of salaries paid to ex-diplomats, reduction in personnel cost to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, payroll shortfall verification, reduction in the non-regular allowances of the armed forces and the para-military agencies and reduction in the non-regular allowances of health institutions, among others.
Diwa further said part of reforms that helped in the recovery were removal of over 50,000 ghost workers from the FGN Payroll; 800 ex-employees of FGN collecting salaries from various MDAs were stopped forthwith; 400 staff from different MDAs collecting double salaries were identified and recovered; 30,000 staff in the payroll not in the nominal roll of MDAs are being verified.
Others abnormalities identified by the committee accoring to him were that over 32,000 employee records on IPPIS with pension and other deficiencies are presently being investigated and that about 12,024 staff collect their salaries in 75 non-commercial banks comprising of 62 microfinance banks, 7 mortgage banks, 3 finance company, 2 bureau de change and 1 development finance institution.
On the Whistle Blower policy of the government, Dikwa said the initiative had led to the recovery of N7.8 billion, US$378 million and £27,800 so far.
He disclosed that the government received 8,373 total communications out of which, 1,231 were real tips and 791 of them are under investigation with 534 of them investigated and 40 were referred to EFCC, ICPC or the DSS.
With the recent discovery of about 80, 000 ghost policemen in the Nigeria Police, the figure released by Diwa is expected to increase when the next update is released.
