BVN: FG to delete 23,306 ghost workers from payroll

A panel investigating multiple salary payments in the Federal Civil Service has indicted 23,306 civil servants as ghost workers.

The panel recommended some banks for further investigation. Already, the Federal Government has started deleting some of the indicted names from its payroll.

According to a reliable source, the ghost workers were discovered after government adopted the Bank Verification Number, BVN for salary payments.

“Out of the accounts of about 312,000 civil servants processed so far, the ministry was said to have uncovered irregularities in the account of about 23,306 of them, who were suspected to have been collecting double salary.

“These indicted individuals are in two categories. In the first group, we found out that the names of some civil servants, whose salaries are being processed, are different from the names on the accounts where their salaries are paid. What this means is either those in this category are drawing salary from two sources (which could be different agencies), or they are ghost workers,”  said the source.

It was also discovered that some of the payments have been going into dormant accounts.

Some banks are now being investigated for their roles in the scam.

A source disclosed that some of the dormant accounts are domiciled in a particular branch of a certain bank. Indeed, about 300 salary accounts were opened in one day and all have become dormant.

Abujacitynews gathered that government decided to adopt the BVN for payment of salaries after the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System, IPPIS proved ineffective in eliminating ghost workers in the federal civil service.