59 dead persons, 369 other ghost workers on Anambra payroll — Commission
The Anambra State Local Government Service Commission announced that it has uncovered over 427 phantom workers who were paid by the state government despite not being employees.Vin Ezeaka, Chairman of the Commission, revealed this to journalists in Awka, the state capital, on Friday.
Ezeaka stated that the committee also uncovered that around six senior workers from various local government areas faked certificates purporting to have been granted by Imo State University.
According to him, ghost workers include 59 commission employees who died a long time ago, 40 others who retired and are still on the commission's payroll, and around 11 others who live abroad and work for the state government.
He stated that the discovery was uncovered during a staff personnel audit conducted to cleanse the state's local government system. During the procedure, it was determined that over 427 personnel were on the local government payroll but had not been staffed.
"Of the 427 ghost workers discovered, 59 were commission employees who died a long time ago, 40 others retired and are still on the commission's payroll, and perhaps 11 others are government employees living abroad whose names are still on the payroll.
"Others included staff members from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe. We identified 59 deceased employees who are still collecting wages, 40 retirees who are also receiving payments, and, most importantly, 222 personnel on the payroll who no one could identify as working in any of the 21 LGAs, with many of them living abroad and still receiving compensation.
"So we wrote to the Joint Account to have them removed from the payroll. Some of them have come to willingly retire, but we have denied because you cannot cheat the government while wanting to retire.
"We will complete our inquiry, and those caught in this abominable crime will face the full wrath of the law in accordance with civil service regulations.
"Apart from this discovery, made at the end of May 2024, something dramatic occurred: we descended on the certificate racketeering cartel within the local government system." We formed a committee to investigate reports of people with questionable certifications working in various local government areas of Anambra State, and we then formed a screening committee that implicated a number of them.
"Those indicted were identified, and we began investigating the certificates they presented to the committee, even going as far as visiting the universities whose certificates they displayed. Out of the 20 people who presented Imo State University certificates, we screened 14 so far, and we discovered that six of the 14 were fake certificates.
"So we dealt with that as well. It is our responsibility to cleanse the system in accordance with the mandate given to us by the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, so that genuine workers who sacrifice their time and energy can be compensated for their efforts rather than looters who contribute nothing to the growth of Anambra state."
The commission chairman went on to say that the current local government and certificate verification was not a witch hunt, but rather a sanitization of the system, and that even top local government employees, such as deputy directors and treasurers, had been fired for using phoney credentials.
Ezeaka stated that persons working with fake certificates in the state's LGA system had been offered a grace period to come forward and voluntarily report themselves or face dismissal when the amnesty expired.
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