From: Mohammed Munirat Nasir, Gusau.
Head of Service of Zamfara State, Alhaji Mujitaba Isah, has disclosed that the state government has put in place mechanism to fish out ghost workers and block all salary leakages.
This would be achieved, he said, by only recognising and collecting staff payment vouchers prepared by Directors of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the state.
Alh. Isah said the move became necessary to stop wanton waste of the state resources as the result of high number of ghost workers in the pay roll of the state government.
He made the disclosure at a media briefing at the end of the state Executive Council meeting in Gusau, assuring that the new measure will not in any way affect the work of the Staff Verification Committee earlier set up by the state government.
The Head of Service said henceforth the state government would only recognise and collect staff payment vouchers prepared by directors from the state’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies to pay monthly salaries.
“From the end of November, each director in all the MDAs would be expected to draw an authentic list of the staff under him which would then be verified by the responsible permanent secretary and submitted to the state Ministry of Finance for payment,” he said.
Isah added state government had met with the labour leaders and had arrived at far reaching decisions to improve government/workers relationships.
“The measure had become necessary in order to curtail the increasing number of ghost workers on the state’s payroll,” he said..
It will be recalled that the state government had earlier set up a Staff Verification Committee to fish out ghost workers and come up with a genuine staff list but the committee was yet to submit its report
The state workers have also been having battle with the state government over non payments of promotion, pension and other arrears which led to an indefinite strike action embarked by the workers about two months ago.
The strike was, however, conditionally suspended last month to give room for some elders of the state to find amicable resolution, part of which was the last Saturday meeting between the state government, the elders and the labour leaders.