The Niger State Government has said that an investigation it conducted had shown that a total of 340 civil servants in the state were either dead or retired but are still receiving salaries.
Chairman of the State Salary Management Committee set up by the state government to screen its workforce, Ibrahim Panti, told newsmen today, October 5 in Minna, the State capital that over 3,000 workers used forged certificates to join the civil service.
According to him, only 25,861civil servants out of the 26,387 names forwarded to the committee by the state Head of Service, were discovered to have registered on the screening portal.
He said that 1,789 civil servants did not complete the screening process due to credential problems among others, while 773 civil servants among those who registered absented themselves from the screening exercise.
The committee chairman said that the payment schedule submitted by the Head of Service for September, showed that a total number of 169 screened staff were discovered missing from the payment schedule.
He gave an assurance that the committee was still looking into the issues of some of the civil servants who might have a genuine reason for being absent.
Panti added that the comprehensive data used in auditing the civil servants were available for possible human management development and for government stakeholders’ use.
“These data would henceforth serve as the fulcrum for easy identification of each employee going forward and is hereby presented for the restructuring of the state civil service.”
The committee was set up with a view to ascertaining the staff strength of the state and its bloated salary bills.
