The Federal Government has uncovered a monumental salary scam in the federal civil service by top government officials who use ghost workers to siphon millions of naira.
President Muhammadu Buhari
The Federal Government is on the verge of probing over 23,306 federal civil servants indicted by a panel for defrauding the government millions of naira every month through an organised salary fraud.
According to a preliminary report of an investigative committee, set up to probe the alleged fraudulent payment of salaries to either ‘ghost’ workers or payments to multiple accounts, indicated that some banks would also be called to answer questions on the huge scam.
Punch reveals that in one particular bank, over 300 accounts were said to have been opened in one day and all the accounts have become inactive.
It has been revealed that all those indicted have been marked for proper saction. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government had begun a plan to investigate and remove the names of the indicted civil servants from its payroll and recover all the stolen money.
This has led most of the indicted civil servants to hurriedly resign their appointments to avoid embarrassment. It was revealed that out of 312,000 civil servants, whose bank accounts had been checked so far in the exercise through the Bank Verification Number platform, the accounts of 23,306 workers had questionable transactions.
The exercise was said to have led to the discovery of a high level of irregularities in salary payment.
The source said: “Out of the accounts of about 312,000 civil servants processed so far, the ministry has uncovered irregularities in about 23,306 of them. The account holders are suspected to have been collecting double salaries.
“These indicted individuals are in two categories. In the first group, we found out that the names of some civil servants, whose salaries are being processed, are different from the names on the accounts where their salaries are paid into. What this means is either those in this category are drawing salaries from two sources (which could be different parastatals), or they are ‘ghost’ workers.”
It is believed these corrupt civil servants had been using ghost workers to siphon government money into individual pockets. It was gathered that the panel also discovered that salaries were being paid into some inactive accounts, which had fuelled the belief that the Federal Government had been paying salaries to ‘ghost’ workers.
“The investigating committee discovered that in a particular branch of a bank, over 300 accounts of some civil servants were opened on the same day and all of them have become dormant.
“By the time the ongoing investigation is concluded, Nigerians will be shocked by the sheer number of top and other categories of civil servants, who may be forced to resign as a result of their complicity in the salary scam,” the source added.
The Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance on Media Matters, Mr. Festus Akanbi, however, refused to confirm the preliminary findings of the panel concerning the number of federal civil servants and banks that had been indicted by the committee.