Anambra Commission Uncovers Over 400 Ghost Workers
The Anambra State Local Government Service Commission has revealed that it uncovered at least 400 ghost workers receiving salaries from the government.
It was gathered that out of the number, 59 are deceased, five are living abroad, and 40 are pensioners still drawing salaries. Additionally, several individuals are involved in certificate fraud, with investigations completed on six cases so far.
This was disclosed on Friday in Awka by the chairman of the commission, Vin Ezeaka.
Ezeaka revealed that the ghost workers were discovered across the 21 local government areas in the state.
The investigation aimed to sanitize the local government system.
Briefing the press, Ezeaka detailed that out of the 427 ghost workers uncovered, 59 were deceased staff still receiving salaries, 40 were retired yet still on the payroll, and five were staff living abroad but still listed as active employees.
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“We discovered 59 deceased staff who are still receiving salaries, 40 retirees also receiving salaries, and above all, we discovered 222 workers on the payroll who nobody could identify as workers in any of the 21 Council areas.
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 government and want to retire.
“We are going to finish our thorough investigation and those caught in this unholy act will face the full weight of the law in accordance with civil service rules.
“Apart from this discovery, at the end of May 2024, something dramatic happened, we descended on the Certificate racketeering cartel within the local government system.
“We set up a committee which came up with a report of people with suspicious certificates working in various local government areas of Anambra State and we then set up a screening committee that indicted so many of them.
“Those indicted were identified and we started investigating the certificates they presented to the committee and went as far as going to the universities whose certificates they brandished and out of the 20 persons who tendered Imo State University certificates, we screened 14 so far where we discovered that six out of the 14 were fake certificates.
“So we have dealt with that aspect also. It is our duty to sanitize the system in line with the mandate given to us by Governor Chukwuma Soludo so that the genuine workers who sacrifice their time and energy can get value for their service and not looters who do not contribute anything to the development of Anambra state.
Ezeaka maintained that the ongoing local government and certificate verification committees were not for any witch-hunt as being speculated but purely to sanitize the system.
Two other persons who retired from the Commission and got employed in two different Higher Institutions in the state were still receiving salaries too.
“We are waiting for the Committees to conclude their investigations, then we move into action. I want to be thorough and that is why the Governor appointed me. The system is bleeding” Ezeaka said
Hafsoh Isiaq is a graduate of Linguistics. An avid writer committed to creative, high-quality research and news reportage. She has considerable experience in writing and reporting across a variety of platforms including print and online.
