The Abia State Government says about 2300 ghost workers exist in it’s workforce and that it has saved over N220 million on monthly wage bill following ongoing verification of civil servants and other public workers in the state.
But the Abia Peoples Democratic Party, PDP says no, the workers are alive and only falsehood orchestrated by Otti, LP to curry public sympathy.
The State Accountant General, Deaconess Njum Onyemenam made the ghost-worker disclosure Monday, stating that the huge savings was made using a unified payment system.
Onyemenam, spoke after a meeting with the state Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, adding that the verification exercise is still ongoing, while the government hopes to make more savings.
“So far, we have been able to save N220 million from the ongoing verification of workers in the state, local governments and pensioners.
“Not less than 2,300 ghost names have been weeded out of the payrolls, using the unified payment system and we hope to still identify more as we continue with the exercise,” the Accountant General said.
She confirmed that following Governor Otti’s directive, last week that workers should be paid the arrears of April salaries left behind by the immediate past administration as well as June pensions to retirees.
Meanwhile, local government staff who had been skipped when the June salaries were paid, due to their failure to submit their verified payment schedule, will receive their salaries this week, Onyemenam said.
However in a swift reaction, the Abia Peoples Democratic Party, PDP says, it’s attention has been drawn to another futile attempt by the Labour Party government of Alex Otti to paint the former governor, Okezie Ikpeazu and the PDP in a bad light by saying that it discovered over 2000 ghost workers in the employ of the Abia State government and in the process saved N200m for the State.
The Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, Hon. Elder Abraham Amah made this declaration Tuesday evening in a statement he signed and made available to newsmen in Umuahia, stating that the claim by the state government of the discovery of 2300 ghost workers that saved about N220 mill is “a falsehood orchestrated by the governor and the LP to curry public sympathy and divert attention from the serious business of governance”
The statement read, “The news of the discovery of ghost workers making the rounds in the national media and on social media is nothing but a falsehood orchestrated by the governor and the LP to curry public sympathy and divert attention from the serious business of governance which they clearly do not have the capacity for, given the interminable faux pas, misspeak and missteps that have become part of the daily routine of this government.
“The purported discovery of ghost workers without an accompanying proof of the names and account numbers of the ghost beneficiaries is not only childish but a plot that leads to nowhere. Thankfully, the Abia State government of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu and past PDP governments never paid anybody cash, as salaries were paid through dedicated bank accounts with Bank Verification Numbers, BVN and other personal vital information of account holders as required by Nigerian banking regulations.
“The Abia PDP challenges governor Alex Otti and his team of discoverers to publish the name of the over 2000 ghost workers with their BVN numbers, addresses and other details and the ministries, departments and agencies of government that purportedly employed them to shame the perpetrators and possibly bring the culprits to justice.
“The recent doublespeak did not stop at the purported discovery of ghost workers but was also seen in the mismanagement of the information that sacked all the medical doctors in Abia State. When the sack circular leaked to the public, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ngozi Okoronkwo was quick to deny the sack only for the leadership of the Abia Branch of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA to confirm the existence of a circular asking all medical doctors in Abia State to reapply for their positions. Even a primary school pupil understands that asking an employee to reapply for one’s position means that one has already been sacked.
“These and many other missteps of the Alex Otti government point to the fact the present government ab initio was not prepared for governance and clearly does not understand that there are rules guiding the engagement and disengagement of civil servants and is not done by executive fiat. His resort to the tactics of a Sole Administrator in a civil climate would certainly fail, and woefully too”.
Abia PDP therefore urged the Labour Party government of Alex Otti to “put its house in order and not to engage in acts that are capable of destroying the civil service which is the engine of government. Before now, we had warned about the disorderliness and implication of the suspension of permanent secretaries, and the manner in which senior officers in rank are now supervised by their juniors in the civil service”.
Abia PDP said it will continue to demand “that the right things are done and at the right time so that the labours of our founding fathers who secured the peace and stability we take for granted today would not be in vain.
“We call on all well meaning Abians to prevail upon the Labour Party and governor Alex Otti to govern the State within the ambits of the law”.
