340 Dead Or Retired Civil Servants Still On Pay Roll – Niger State

The Niger State Government on Monday, said an investigation it conducted had shown that a total of 340 civil servants in the state were either dead or retired but were still receiving salaries.

Ibrahim Panti, Chairman of the State Salary Management Committee set up by the state government to screen the its workforce, disclosed this to journalists at the Government House in Minna, the state capital.

The committee was set up with a view to ascertaining the staff strength of the state and its bloated salary bills.

Panti also disclosed that over 3,000 workers used forged certificates to join the civil service.

According to him, only 25,861civil servants out of the 26,387 names forwarded to the committee by the state Head of Service, were discovered to have registered on the screening portal.

He further disclosed that 1,789 civil servants did not complete the screening process due to credential problems among others, while 773 civil servants among those who registered absented themselves from the screening exercise.

Furthermore, he said the payment schedule submitted by the Head of Service for September, showed that a total number of 169 screened staff were discovered missing from the payment schedule.

He gave an assurance that the committee was still looking into the issues of some of the civil servants who might have a genuine reason for being absent.

Panti added that the comprehensive data used in auditing the civil servants were available for possible human management development and for government stakeholders’ use.

Panti said: “These data would henceforth serve as the fulcrum for easy identification of each employee going forward and is hereby presented for the restructuring of the state civil service.”