A shocking revelation rocked Abia State Local Governments when not less than 1727 ghost workers were exposed in its 17 councils.

This was discovered when the state government could no longer condone the rampant increase in the council’s wages, thus an investigation team was set up to implement a biometric data method in order to identify the genuine workers and fish out the ghost names that appeared on the wage bill.

The Chairman of the Biometric data committee was the Governor’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Cosmos Ndukwe.

According to him, from their discovery, Aba South council took the lead, with the highest number of ghost workers of 245, followed by Isiala Ngwa South with 153 ghost workers, while the least was Ugwunagbo which has 28 ghost workers.
Mr. Ndukwe, while giving a detailed report of their findings explained that members of his committee visited the 17 councils and did a head to head count of the genuine workers during the exercise.
“We were able to identify 1727 ghost workers who could not be accounted for, which include those who did not appear before us and they have to get in touch with the governor to explain themselves,” he said.

He also beckoned on the state government to pay all outstanding salaries and arrears of the genuine workers in their respective Local Governments.

However, while receiving the final reports from the committee, the State Governor Theodore Orji expressed his disappointment at the high rate of ghost workers eating deep into the financial pocket of the state.

He condemned the attitude of those workers whom he said, instead of working for their pay “are busy undermining the efforts of the state”.

The Governor also assured that all efforts are been made by his administration to put a lasting solution to this menace.
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