Bayelsa uncovers 5000 ghost workers

At least 5,000 ghost workers have been discovered from the payroll of Bayelsa State, the government said yesterday.



The Chief Accountant in the Office of Special Adviser on Treasury, Accounts and Revenue, Dr David Ala-Peter, said the ghost workers were found after the recent staff verification exercise.

He said more than 50,000 workers were captured in the exercise.

Ala-Peter explained that the exercise was aimed at identifying fake names to reduce the state’s wage bill.

He said: “The panel has done well during the exercise. We use software of international standards such as the Oracle software.

“The method used was very effective. We have established staff data base; we captured both their finger prints, dates of birth and their credentials.

“During the exercise, we verified more than 50,000 workers. Right now, we are operating with little above 45,000 workers.”

The accountant said currently in the state, names in the payroll could not be duplicated because of fingerprint identification.

While saying that the exercise reduced the state’s wage bill, he however, added: “But I may not be able to ascertain the correct figure.”

Hitherto, the wage bill of the state ran above N4bn.

Governor Seriake Dickson complained about the bloated wages of workers and lamented in July that the government’s wage bill of N4.3bn was too much and unsustainable.

He said that the state government’s wage bills “over the months remains a sour point in our financial balance sheet.”



He said: “I disagree with this figure of N4.3bn because it is not sustainable for our economy. We must come together and do something urgently to reduce this figure. We have to do something if we must grow our economy.”