2,300 Phantom Names Found On Payroll By Abia, Saves Over N200m Monthly

Following the continued verification of employees in the local governments, the Abia State Government said it had saved an additional N220 million on monthly wage bills.

This occurs just three weeks after an investigation of the previous administration’s last-minute employment scam led to the removal of nearly 5,000 names from the public payroll. This activity helped the state save roughly N250 million each month.

Kazie Uko, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, the State Accountant General, Njum Onyemenam, said huge savings were made using a unified payment system.

Onyemenam, who spoke Monday after a meeting with the state Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, OFR, said the verification exercise was still ongoing and that the government hopes to make more savings.

“So far, we have been able to save an additional N220 million from the ongoing verification of workers in the local governments.

“Not less than 2,300 ghost workers have recently been weeded out of the payroll, 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, the government had last week paid the arrears of April salaries, left behind by the immediate past administration and also June pensions to retirees.

Also, 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.