No fewer than 199 ghosts posing as medical doctors have been drawing their monthly salaries from the government of Zamfara State for a long time.
The discovery was made yesterday, January 14, by the State Governor, Bello Matawalle himself. But he did not say the amount of money that has been sank into the ghost doctors’ salary payment and for how long.
Governor Matawalle, who spoke in a chat with news men at Maradun Local Government Area of the State., said that the ghost doctors were discovered during the recent workers’ verification exercise for the implementation of the N30,0000 new national minimum wage.
“We discovered that in payroll, we have 280 medical doctors receiving salary monthly, but only 81 were genuine doctors while all the remaining 199 were ghost workers.
“This was among the major challenges that affected the full implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage for the workers in the state which commenced in Nov. 2022 under my administration.
“We are working with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other stakeholders to address the problem,” Matawalle said.
He said that his administration was ready to ensure the smooth payment of workers’ salary as well as general improvement of workers’ welfare in the state.
“As I am speaking to you, I built 450 houses for the civil servants in the state and I will hand over the houses to the workers very soon.
Governor Matawalle said that the state government is not owing civil servants’ salary, saying: “I have paid all salaries of government workers in the state for the months of November and December 2022.”
