From:Ruth Yarnap, Bauchi
The Verification Committee set up by the Bauchi State government has revealed that a total of 596 dead civil servants in the state are still drawing salaries and allowances from the purse of the state government over the years.
The Chairman of the Committee, Adamu Ibrahim Gumba disclosed this to news men in a press briefing in Bauchi, saying that during the assignment which took about three months, 4,578 people abdicated to appear before the Committee to be verified.
According to him, a total of 24,736 people made up of state workers and local government workers as well as pensioners have been verified and cleared by the committee and have started receiving their salaries and allowances.
Speaking on those who abdicated to appear before the committee, the chairman said that, “may be they will have another chance to be verified by the implementation committee to be set up, but to me, they are suspects and everything must be done to identify them”.
If the entire 130,000 workers in the state and local governments as well as pensioners will be verified, Alhaji Adamu Gumba said that ghost workers will be discovered because as he put it, “if we can uncover ghost workers from the 30,226 verified, how much more will be discovered if the entire number were verified”.
The Committee Chairman assured that all those verified and clear by the committee but have not received their 3 months salaries and allowances will now be paid without any further delay declaring that already the State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir has approved the immediate payment of the arrears of the salaries.
He then expressed hope that whatever amount will be saved from the exercise will be used by the government to improve the welfare of the state civil service for optimum service delivery.
According to him, in a no distant future, embargo placed on recruitment of new staff will be lifted to allow the recruitment of professionals to replace those who have retired because according to him, “most MDAs are lacking professionals in service”.
