The Ministry of Finance has announced that it is removing 24,000 ghost workers from the national payroll, thereby saving a whopping 2.3 billion naira on a monthly basis back into its purse.
This figure make up 7.5 per cent of the 312,000 names so far checked in an ongoing exercise to fish out corruption within the system.
Spokesman to the ministry, Festus Akanbi gave reasons for this development.
According to him, the Bank Verification Number (BVN) system was used to discover various frauds within the civil service and its agencies.
It was further revealed that salaries were being paid to people who do not exist and some civil servants were also receiving salaries from multiple agencies.
Akanbi would not give a figure for the total workforce until the verification exercise is complete.
He hinted that Federal workers’ salaries is the biggest item on the budget and accounts for more than 40 per cent of Nigerian government expenditure.