59 dead persons, 40 retired staff, people living abroad still earn salaries in Anambra – Official

The Anambra State Government says it has discovered 427 ghost workers in its local government service.

The Chairperson of the Anambra State Local Government Civil Service Commission, Vincent Ezeaka, disclosed this on Friday while speaking with reporters in Awka, The Nation newspaper reported.

Mr Ezeaka, a lawyer, said of the 427 ghost workers, 59 are deceased, five are living abroad, and 40 are retired workers still earning salaries in two tertiary institutions in the state.

The chairperson said the ghost workers were discovered across the 21 local government areas of the state.

He said 222 of the ghost workers could not be identified in any of the 21 council areas.

‘How we discovered’

Mr Ezeaka said the commission hired a retired permanent secretary to head an ongoing verification exercise in the system.

He added that the discoveries were made during a staff audit launched to sanitise the state’s civil service.

“We are going to finish our thorough investigation and those caught in this unholy act will face the full weight of the law in accordance with civil service rules.

“We have many of them living abroad and still receiving salaries, so we wrote to the Joint Account to remove them from the payroll,” he said.

‘Fake certificates’

The chairperson said apart from the discovery of ghost workers, some workers, including deputy directors and local government treasurers, have also been sacked for allegedly possessing fake certificates.

“We set up a committee which came up with a report of people with suspicious certificates working in various local government areas of Anambra State and we then set up a screening committee that indicted so many of them.

“Those indicted were identified and we started investigating the certificates they presented to the committee and went as far as going to the universities whose certificates they brandished.

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“And out of the 20 persons who tendered Imo State University certificates, we screened 14 so far where we discovered that six out of the 14 were fake certificates,” he said.

“So we have dealt with that aspect also. It is our duty to sanitise the system in line with the mandate given to us by Governor Charles Soludo so that the genuine workers who sacrifice their time and energy can get value for their service and not looters who do not contribute anything to the development of Anambra State.”

‘Not witch-hunting’

Mr Ezeaka stressed that the ongoing local government and certificate verification exercise was to sanitise the system, and not to witch-hunt.

“We are waiting for the committees to conclude their investigations, then we move into action. I want to be thorough and that is why the governor appointed me. The system is bleeding,” he said.