Benue govt saves N1.2bn after cleaning payroll

Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, revealed that his government has saved a substantial sum of N1.2 billion through a recent staff verification exercise conducted on civil servants. The governor made this disclosure during an Extraordinary Stakeholders Meeting of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, which took place on Friday.

The staff verification exercise was initiated by the state government to tackle issues of fraud and identify ghost workers within the civil service. In the course of the exercise, it was discovered that around 2,500 ghost workers were listed across the 23 Local Government Areas of the state, shedding light on the extent of the problem.

Governor Alia expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the first phase of the verification process, highlighting that fraudulent activities were successfully detected and eliminated from the state’s payroll. The removal of these ghost workers led to the significant savings of N1.2 billion for the government.

Further efforts to curb financial malpractices were also fruitful. The governor announced that the government managed to reduce the expenses attributed to ghost schools and ghost workers from N1.6 billion to N800 million, signifying a commendable reduction in misallocated funds.

Addressing another pressing issue, Governor Alia assured that the delay in salaries for some teachers, caused by the ongoing audit, has been resolved. He stated that the affected teachers have started receiving alerts for their two months’ worth of salaries.