612 ghost workers on government payroll in primary schools have been uncovered by the Bayelsa state government.
Timipre Seipulou, technical adviser to Governor Douye Diri on Revenues and Accounts who also heads the state’s committee on review of grade levels and steps of local government and primary school staff, disclosed this as the committee presented its report.
Presenting the report to the state Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, who stood in for the governor, Seipulou, said the Committee reviewed a total of 14,258 cases in the various local government councils.
He said out of 7,207 primary school staff in the state, 612 were confirmed by headmasters as ghost workers in their schools.
Seipulou noted that the Committee conducted a staff verification exercise using the March 2021 payroll as a template and discovered some anomalies. 573 staff were not in the payrolls but were said to be physically present in the schools, while names of 10 dead and 13 retired staff were found in the payrolls.
Recommendation made by the committee include setting up of a special team to review cases of staff who appear in the payrolls but are not in schools, removal of dead and retired staff from the wage bill, using the April 2021 payrolls, grade levels and steps report as a basis to conduct physical verification of all staff with an Oracle Team on the ground to capture the biometrics of the workers during the verification exercise.
The state Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, commended the Committee for doing a thorough work that would help in repositioning the local government councils for better service delivery.
He promised to convey the report to Governor Douye Diri and work closely with all relevant authorities in carrying out what he described as segmented implementation of the committee’s recommendations.
