With recurrent expenditure accounting for more than 50 percent of budgets of all tiers of government, reducing the cost of governance is one major challenge presently facing the country taking into consideration the reduced revenue allocations from the Federation Account arising from low oil prices and revenues since the last quarter of 2008.
State governments have been particularly traumatised by the unfolding trend of dwindling revenues. One area that has perennially attracted official concern is the high wage bill of state governments and the challenge of guaranteeing that the huge bills are worthwhile and not fictitious.
Recent revelations confirm that many states may still be expending enormous revenues paying salaries to ghost workers i.e. phantom workers who have been listed on the state’s payroll through the fraudulent instrumentality of certain officials in government, who actually pocket the salaries.
[Gbenga]

Gbenga
The recent case of Kogi State where the governor, Ibrahim Idris, insisted on a thorough staff audit by a consulting firm despite pockets of opposition from highly placed state officials is instructive. So far, the audit has sent jitters into the rank and file of officials who may have been instrumental to the listing of ghost workers and certain arrests have been made in connection with the complicity of certain government officials.
Reports monitored by BusinessDay revealed that the chief of staff at the state’s Health Management Board was arrested for allegedly distributing to persons forged letters of appointment which were backdated. Also, one Sunday Abu of the State Teaching Service Commission who was said to have been behind the listing of over 5,000 ghost workers was equally nabbed by the law enforcement agents.
So far the staff audit exercise in Kogi State handled by a consultant and with the aid of biometric data capturing technology has revealed that up to N1 billion had been wastefully expended paying salaries and emoluments to ghost workers. Not surprisingly, considering the complicity of some highly placed officials the staff audit consulting firm had revealed that they had been approached by certain persons who have the intent to wrongfully manipulate the staff audit exercise.
As at mid 2008, Niger State government through a similar staff audit discovered that it had been paying salaries and emoluments to about 4,000 ghost workers. The state which once had 37,000 staff now had their staff strength realistically reduced to 33,000 staff. In a similar case, BusinessDay investigations revealed that Bayelsa State had saved up to 400 million naira from a staff audit exercise that fished out ghost workers. Equally, Ogun State government under the administration of Gbenga Daniel had through the appropriate computerisation of staff salaries and pensions payment process saved up to N50 million on a monthly basis, which hitherto had been going into the pockets of the ghost worker network.
With many states expending over 50 percent of their annual budget on payment of salaries, emoluments and pensions, it is worthwhile that all the states begin to focus on determining their realistic staff strength in order to discontinue the wasteful expenditure on ghost workers fuelled by a corrupt cabal in the civil service. The state governors must resist any form of blackmail from their political constituencies and muster adequate political will to pursue a proper staff audit taking into consideration that there are entrenched corrupt networks in the state bureaucracies that have over the decades benefited from an unrealistically bloated civil service which had drained the states of enormous revenues.

Source: http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4024:ghost-worker-phenomenon-as-bastion-of-treasury-looting-&catid=129:corruption&Itemid=312

A lesson learnt from our leaders. GIGO.

What else is new?