43,000 Ghost Workers Discovered By Fg In One Year

Former Finance Minister, Mr.
Olusegun Aganga, said at the
weekend that the Federal
Government had removed a
total of 43,000 "ghost
workers" from the payroll of its ministries, departments
and agencies (MDAs) within
the last one year. Aganga, who spoke with
journalists in Lagos shortly
after receiving the Young
Men's Christian Association
(YMCA) award for exemplary
public office life, said this was achieved through the
implementation of the
Integrated Personnel and
Payroll Information System
(IPPIS). He said the payroll of the Federal Government before
IPPIS implementation had
been 112,000 for the 36 MDAs. Aganga pointed out that the
implementation of IPPIS was
part of the efforts to reduce
recurrent expenditure of the
government. "As part of the Federal
Government's effort to reduce
the level of recurrent
expenditure, in particular,
personnel cost, which
represents more than 50 per cent of recurrent expenditure,
we have deepened what we
called the IPPIS system. IPPIS
system, which is biometric, is
a system where the data of
every employee of government has to be
captured and your payment is
made directly into your bank
account. The nominal payroll
of the Federal Government
was supposed to be 112,000 employees. Based on what we
did through the IPPIS, we
were able to remove 43,000
from the payroll. This will lead
to significant savings for the
Federal Government," he said. The former finance minister
said the government had to
trim its personnel cost, which
formed a major part of the
unnecessary costs distorting
the country's expenditure pattern. Personnel cost increased, he
disclosed, from N850 billion to
N1.3 trillion between 2009 and
2010. . . .  .  .   .