The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, has announced its discovery of a man who hitherto was collecting salaries of more than twelve ghost workers, with the names of his wife, son and mother-in-law on government’s payroll.
BBC Pidgin report on Wednesday attributed the bombshell to ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN).
Aliyu, according to the report made the findings known
while speaking on the commission’s investigation into payroll fraud across federal government institutions.
As stated by BBC, the ICPC boss said investigations revealed that the Nigeria Police Force and five federal ministries and agencies have the highest number of suspected fake workers which were uncovered during the commission’s payroll verification exercise.
The commission reportedly said that it discovered suspected 908 ghost workers in at least 50 ministries, departments and agencies, recovering about N942 million allegedly paid as fraudulent salaries.
According to ICPC chair, the ghost workers are fictitious names inserted into government payrolls to receive salaries fraudulently, adding that in some cases, salaries are allegedly diverted by officials who add relatives or associates to the payroll despite them not being employed.
Among the institutions identified, the Nigeria Police Force recorded the highest number of suspected fake workers.
“For this operation, we identified 570 people whom we suspect are among the fake workers collecting salaries without working,” the ICPC chairman said about the police data.
Next to the police is the National Water Resources Authority with 80 suspected fake workers while Federal Ministry of Works and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have 56 and 24 suspected fake workers respectively.
“For the Ministry of Defence, we identified 19 people acting as fake workers,” Aliyu was quoted as saying.
Other affected institutions are: the Federal Ministry of Electricity and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, with 17 suspected fake workers each, the Federal Ministry of Health with 15, and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation with 12.
