Bauchi discovers 596 dead workers drawing salaries, allowances

It has been discovered that a total of 596 dead civil servants in Bauchi state are still drawing salaries and allowances from the purse of the state government over the years.

The discovery was made by the Verification Committee set up by the state government to ascertain the number of civil servants in the state in order to determine the actual amount payable as salaries and allowances on monthly basis.

While briefing newsmen on the activities of the Committee as it winds up, Chairman of the Committee, Adamu Ibrahim Gumba disclosed that during the assignment which took about three months, 4,578 people abdicated to appear before the Committee to be verified.

He added that a total of 24,736 people made up of state workers and local government workers as well as pensioners have been verified and cleared by the committee and have started receiving their salaries and allowances.

On those who abdicated to appear before the committee, Adamu Gumba said that “maybe they will have another chance to be verified by the implementation committee to be set up, but to me, they are suspects and everything must be done to identify them”.

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According to him, if the entire 130,000 workers in the state and local governments, as well as pensioners, will be verified, ghost workers will be discovered because as he puts it, “if we can uncover ghost workers from the 30,226 verified, how much more will be discovered if the entire number were verified”.

He then assured that all those verified and clear by the committee but have not received their 3 months salaries and allowances will now be paid without any further delay declaring that already the State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir has approved the immediate payment of the arrears of the salaries.

Adamu Gumba expresses the hope that whatever amount will be saved from the exercise will be used by the government to improve the welfare of the state civil service for optimum service delivery.

He added that in a no distant future, embargo placed on the recruitment of new staff will be lifted to allow the recruitment of professionals to replace those who have retired because according to him, “most MDAs are lacking professionals in service”.

It will be recalled that late last year, Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir set up a special committee to verify the BVN of civil servants in the state who were suspected to be ghost workers.