LIVE UPDATES
The Anambra State Local Government Service Commission disclosed that over 427 ghost workers were earning the state government salaries without being staff members.
The Chairman of the Commission, Vin Ezeaka, made this disclosure to journalists in Awka, Anambra State capital, on Friday.
Ezeaka said the commission also discovered that six senior employees at the various local government areas forged their certificates, claiming they were issued by the Imo State University.
He said 59 among the ghost workers were employees of the commission who died a long time ago, 40 had retired but were still on the state payroll, while 11 others were living abroad.
He said, “The discovery was made during a staff personnel audit launched to sanitise the local government system in the state. In the process, over 427 workers were discovered to have been on the local government payroll without being staff members.
“Out of the 427 ‘ghost workers’ uncovered, 59 were staff of the commission who had died a long time ago, 40 others had retired and are still on the payroll of the commission, while about 11 others were staff living abroad whose names were still on the payroll of the government.
“Others were some staff members of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe. We also discovered 222 workers on the payroll who nobody could identify as workers in any of the 21 LGAs and we have many of them living abroad and still receiving salaries.
“So, we wrote to the Joint Account (JAC) to remove them from the payroll. Some of them have come to voluntarily retire, but we refused because you can’t cheat the government and want to retire.
“We are going to finish our investigation and those we caught in this unholy act will face the full wrath of the law in accordance with civil service rules.”
