Sokoto State Government said it had deleted 13, 415 ghost names from the payrolls of the 23 local councils of the state.
The Commissioner for Local Governments and Community Development, Alhaji Mannir Dan-Iya made the disclosure in Sokoto on Thursday.
The commissioner, who briefed newsmen on the activities of the ministry in the last two years, said the ghost names were deleted after two verification exercises of workers were conducted in 2016 and 2017.
He said: ”After the two exercises, 12,915 junior staff, comprising of sit-at-home and ghost workers were flushed out from the payrolls.
” Similarly, senior staff verification exercise was conducted, whereby 500 staff, comprising of those due for retirement, dead and ghost workers were removed from the payrolls.”
Dan-Iya further stated that the government had centralized the payment of the salaries of local government workers, to enhance accountability.
He added that payments were now made through banks direct to individual worker’s account.
The commissioner assured workers with genuine cases of omission and underpayment, that their issues were being tackled.
Dan-Iya stressed that the state government was committed to making local governments functional and effective.
” This is why the state government is assisting them monthly to pay the salaries of the workers, by augmenting their monthly allocations from the federation account.
” We are committed to ensuring that they function diligently, as the local government is a very important tier of government.
” Governor Aminu Tambuwal is concerned about what is happening in the local governments and this would be sustained,” he said.
The commissioner said N165 million assorted drugs had distributed to all the 23 local governments, to boost health care delivery. ( NAN)
