Lagos Recovers N250m From Ghost Workers

The Lagos State Government says it has recovered N250 million from ghost workers in various local governments, local council development areas, and local education districts of the state.

Large scale of fraud has been the bane of the councils and Local Education Districts in Lagos as ghost workers continue to have their way.

Speaking during the salary verification exercise in the councils, the Permanent Secretary and Auditor-General for Local Governments, Mr. Mubashiru Hassan, said since the commencement of the exercise, N250 million had been recovered from ghost workers.

“Since the commencement of the exercise, over N250 million has so far been recovered, while necessary disciplinary action was taken against the culprits and retirees as required by the regulation,” he said.

According to him, the exercise was conducted between 27 August and 21 September, 2012 in various councils of the state and the LG Education Authorities.

The auditor general added that the 2012 exercise was carried out with data capturing machines that assisted in verifying the physical existence of staff and their personal data.

“With the involvement of Local Government Service Commission, Establishment and Pension Office, Public Service Office, Ministry of Science and Technology and State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) staff as part of the audit team, government was able to reduce drastically the issue of ghost workers, loss of public fund and increase the accuracy and integrity of Human Resources (HR) data base in the state,” he stated.

Hassan reiterated that the audit team had been trained in the use of data capturing machine for the correction of anomalies in the human resources data.

The Permanent Secretary noted that the outcome of the 2012 exercise would soon be published and that necessary action taken in line with the laid down rules and regulations of the state.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga