31st March, 2012
The Government of Kano state, northwest Nigeria, has identified 135 ghost workers in the civil service.
The state’s Head of Service, Alhaji Umar Shehu Minjibir told journalists Friday that the ghost workers already identified may face prosecution.
The state Governor, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso since he assumed office in May last year, had at different occasions decried the menace of ghost workers and sundry irregularities in the state and local government civil service.
In November last year, Governor Kwankwaso ordered authorities of the state civil service to engaged the services of Fidelity and Unity Banks to carry out Bio-Metric Data Capture for civil servants in the two tiers of government in the state.
“The objective of the entire exercise was, in one part, triggered by the observed discrepancies in the actual number of staff strength on the payroll and nominal roll submitted to the transition committee at the inception of the second tenure of the present administration.
“The Kwankwaso administration has also underscored the need to meet up with cutting-edge technologies and the desire to automate human resource records of the state public service with a view to integrate the data with the payroll system so as to streamline the actual staff strength as well as facilitate prompt payment of workers’ salary,” Minjibir stated.
He also revealed to reporters told reporters that so far, 24 cases of under-aged workers and 16 over-aged workers have been discovered at the local government level, adding that cases of duplication of staff numbers involving over 100 staff, while two cases of impersonation were also recorded during the exercise.
“So far, 23,781 staff have been captured under the state Civil Service with 17,219 still outstanding; while staff under the Unified Local Government Service had returned 25,871 with all staff duly captured leaving 5,242 outstanding.
“For an update on the exercise at the commencement of the project, 41, 000 bio-data forms were distributed to workers in the state service, while 31,000 forms were also issued to the staff of the 44 Local Governments, bringing the total staff strength to 71, 000.
“I wish to call on the banks to mobilise resources by way of deployment of more personnel and facilities to ensure completion of the exercise within the deadline. In furtherance of the desire to meet up with the deadline, workers would be requested to come out on Saturdays and Sundays for them to be captured in the bio-metric data,” Minjibir further stated.
By Mauabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano