Nigerian Government Hands Over Names of Ghost Workers to EFCC

The Nigerian government on Sunday handed a list of suspected civil servants who were alleged to have been responsible for injecting names of ghost workers into government payroll to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for investigation and prosecution.

Media Adviser to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Festus Akanbi, told the Punch newspaper that the EFCC is already investigating the matter. He stated that “The ministry has sent the list of those involved in the ‘ghost’ workers scam to the EFCC and they (EFCC’s operatives) are the ones investigating the matter.”


 An unnamed official in the ministry told the newspaper that the prosecution of some of those that were charged to court was being slowed down owing to the fact that the courts were on recess.
The Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit had last week said it found discrepancies on the payroll of the Federal Government’s Ministries, Agencies and Departments to the tune of N6.4bn.

President Muhammadu Buhari had set up the Continuous Audit Team to look into the finances of Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies to stop the menace of ‘ghost’ workers.

Head of the Continuous Audit Team, Mohammed Dikwa, had said the Continuous Audit Team plans to conduct regular checks on the control and risk assessment of MDAs.

“We look at the records that are being kept to ensure transparency and accountability of the financial transactions carried over time.

“In terms of ‘ghost workers’, we have found about 43,000 ghost workers so far and as of May 30, we had N4.2bn that is saved on a monthly basis.

“But as of June 30, we were able to make more recoveries of N2.2bn, which has led to an additional savings of N6.4bn monthly.”

Recently, the Adamawa State Government said the clean-up of its payroll, involving local government employees in the state, which uncovered 12,000 ‘ghost’ workers, saved the state government N500m.