Retired staff, 59 dead persons on payroll in Anambra
...Overseas-based persons earn salaries
CITIZENS COMPASS – The Chairman, Anambra State Local Government Service Commission, Vincent Ezeaka, has revealed that 427 ghost workers are on government payroll in the State.
He said out of the figure, 40 staff, including those who have relocated abroad, are still earning salaries in the State.
He disclosed this yesterday in Awka, while fielding questions from journalists.
He said 44 people were working with either fake OND, HND, BSc, NECO and fake First School Leaving Certificates.
He said that out of the 427 ghost workers, the Commission uncovered 59 persons who had died a long time ago, as well as 40 others that had retired, are still on the payroll of the commission.
The Chairman said 11 others are living abroad whose names are still on the payroll of the government.
Ezeaka said the commission hired a retired permanent secretary to head the ongoing verification, adding that the discoveries were made during staff personnel audit which was launched to sanitize the system in the state.
He said some Deputy Directors and local government Treasurers have also been sacked for fake certificates.
The chairman said: “Before the commencement of the The chairman said: “Before the commencement of the verification exercise, we wrote all the 21 local government areas, asking workers to voluntarily resign if they have issues with their certificates. We assured them that they would be granted amnesty, but that if we have to spend time and money to fish them out, we would dismiss them.
““Based on the letter, their union, NULGE begged that they would go round and convince workers to submit themselves provided they would be protected. After some time, on June 20, they brought 40 names of staff and their profiles and pleaded that those staff be demoted, instead of outright sack. We wrote the governor to grant them disciplinary procedure amnesty.
“Some of them suddenly applied for voluntary retirement, but we refused because you cannot cheat government and want to retire formally.
