The House of Representatives has set up an adhoc committee to determine whether or not there is a syndicate behind the 45,000 ghost workers detected in the Civil Service.
The lawmakers made this disclosure while reacting to statement credited to minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama, that the federal government has saved N100billion through the Integral Payroll by Personnel Information System (IPPIS) exercise which audited 153,019 workers at the end of January this year.
The lawmakers quoted the minister to have said that over 45,000 ghost workers were unearthed through the IPPIS under the ministry of Finance during the implementation of the scheme in 251 federal government ministries department and agencies (MDAs).
Passing a motion of urgent public importance raised by Hon Ahmed Idris (ACN, Plateau), the lawmakers mandated the ad- hoc committee to determine the exact amount of monies lost and figures of monies saved or recovered and what the monies were used for.
“The sad incident of ghost workers is usually sustained by a chain of syndicates and cabal who feed on inflating the actual number of workers while fleecing the nation of billions of naira annually,” Rep Idris lamented.
Ruling on the motion, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, described the matter as “serious”, and stressed that “this institution must definitely take an interest to ensure that what has not been done by the federal government or Civil service, is done.
“This is an infraction on our anti-corruption agencies and a situation where a few people have been draining the coffers of this nation is unacceptable.”
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