Busted Ghost Workers: EFCC Gets Names Of The Bad Guys

When you hear the word “ghost workers” just know that living humans are behind it. The Ministry of Finance has said the list of those involved in the manipulation of government payroll and allegedly injected ‘ghost’ workers had been sent to the EFCC for investigation and prosecution.

The development was confirmed by the Media Adviser to the Minister of Finance, Mr Festus Akanbi.

He told Punch that, “The ministry has sent the list of those involved in the ‘ghost’ workers scam to the EFCC and they (EFCC’s operatives) are the ones investigating the matter.”

Findings revealed that while some perpetrators of the ‘ghost’ workers scam were being investigated, others had been charged to court by the anti-graft agency.

An official in the Ministry of Finance confided in Punch that the prosecution of some of those that were charged to court was being slowed down owing to the fact that the court is presently on recess.

The Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit had said it found discrepancies on the payroll of the Federal Government’s Ministries, Agencies and Departments to the tune of N6.4bn.

President Buhari had set up the Continuous Audit Team to look into finances of Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies to arrest the menace of ‘ghost’ workers, over payment of allowances, fraud and embezzlement in then MDAs.

Dikwa had said, “The Continuous Audit Team plans to conduct regular checks on the control and risk assessment of MDA. We look at records that are being kept to ensure transparency and accountability of the financial transactions carried over time.

“In terms of ‘ghost’ workers, we have found about 43,000 ghost workers so far and as of May 30, we had N4.2bn that is saved on a monthly basis. As of June 30, we were able to make more recoveries of N2.2bn, which has led to an additional savings of N6.4bn monthly.”