ICPC uncovers 908 suspected ghost workers, police top payroll fraud list

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has revealed that the Nigeria Police Force tops the list of Federal Government institutions with the highest number of suspected ghost workers uncovered during a nationwide payroll audit.

The anti-corruption agency said its verification exercise covered at least 50 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), where investigators identified 908 suspected fictitious employees and recovered about N942 million believed to have been fraudulently paid as salaries.

ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), made the disclosure while speaking on the commission’s ongoing investigation into payroll fraud in Federal Government establishments, according to a BBC Pidgin report published on Wednesday.

The commission explained that ghost workers are non-existent employees whose names are illegally inserted into government payrolls to facilitate the fraudulent collection of salaries.

It added that some officials allegedly manipulate payroll systems by enrolling relatives and associates who are not legitimately employed by the government.

Aliyu cited one case in which a suspect allegedly enrolled his wife, son and mother-in-law on the payroll while simultaneously collecting the salaries of 12 genuine workers.

According to the ICPC chairman, the Nigeria Police Force had the largest number of suspected ghost workers.

“For this operation, we identified 570 people whom we suspect are among the fake workers collecting salaries without working,” he said.

Another unnamed government agency was also found to have dozens of questionable entries on its payroll.

“For this agency, we identified 80 names of people collecting salaries even though they are not workers of the agency,” Aliyu said.

The Federal Ministry of Works ranked among the most affected institutions with 56 suspected ghost workers, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 24.

The Ministry of Defence accounted for 19 suspected fake workers.

“For the Ministry of Defence, we identified 19 people acting as fake workers,” the ICPC chairman stated.

Other agencies listed by the commission include the Federal Ministry of Electricity and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, each with 17 suspected ghost workers, while the Federal Ministry of Health recorded 15. The Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had 12 suspected fake workers.

The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of Interior also featured in the investigation, although the commission did not disclose the number of suspected ghost workers linked to either institution.