The sum of N50 billion has been recovered so far through the audit of security agencies payroll.
Head of the Continuous Audit team of the Federal Government, Mohammed Dikwa, on Tuesday, revealed this at a meeting between the Continuous Audit team, Minister of Finance and Heads of Para-Military agencies in Abuja.
According to Dikwa, auditing of the Military payroll and enrolling them on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) had already commenced.
He said efforts are on to train officers from the account departments of all the para-militray agencies, on IPPIS and the Government Management Information System (GIFMIS).
According to Dikwa, “Since we started the continuous audit programme, we have saved about N50 billion and over 43,000 ghost workers have been removed from the payroll of the federal government.
“And as we go on, we are very sure that we will continue to reduce the cost of federal government payroll.
“Please note the cost is not related to ghost workers alone but with allowances which we believe have to be trimmed down so that we can manage the cost of governance,’’ he said.
Recall that the Buhari’s administration last year set up the Continuous Audit team to look into the payroll of all Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
One very important reason for creating this team was for government to uncover ghost workers in the Federal Civil Service. So far the team has made various discoveries in thousands within in the system.