… Investigate MDAs Over Ghost Workers

The House of Representatives in Abuja has mandated an ad hoc committee to investigate the incident of ghost workers in Ministries Departments and Agencies ( MDAs).

The committee was also mandated to determine the exact amount of money lost to ghost workers and what the money saved or recovered was used for the committee is expected to report back to the house within two weeks.

The Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama, recently at the Federal Executive Council meeting said that 45,000 ghost workers were detected in MDAs and N100 billion was saved.

The resolution emanated from a motion moved by Rep. Ahmed Idris (ACN-Plateau) which was unanimously adopted.

Idris said it was revealed that under the integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS), a total of 45,000 ghost-workers were discovered during the implementation of the scheme in 251 (MDAs).

He said that a total of 153,019 workers were audited in the 215 MDAs as at January 2013.

Ahmed said one of the constitutional duties of the house was to ensure prudent management of the nation’s resources as enshrined in section 88 (2) of the 1999 constitution (as amended).

“The powers conferred on the National Assembly are exercisable only for the purpose of enabling it to expose corruption, inefficiency, waste in the execution and administration of laws within its legislative competence,’’ he said.

He said that the IPPIS was introduced to enhance efficiency in personnel cost planning and budgeting.

The legislator said that under this policy, personnel cost was based on actual verified number of staff and not estimates.

He said that less than half of the federal MDAs had been audited, yet a worrying 45,000 ghost workers had been discovered so far.

Ahmed said that the incident of ghost workers was usually sustained by a chain of syndicates and cabals that were feeding on inflating the actual number of workers.