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| President Muhammadu Buhari (Image credits: AFP) |
The Federal Government is
concluding plans to probe no fewer than 23,306 federal civil servants, who have
been accused by a panel of defrauding the government of millions of naira every
month through an organized salary fraud.
The
Punch report continues:
The
preliminary report of an investigative committee, set up to probe the alleged
fraudulent payment of salaries to either ‘ghost’ workers or payments to
multiple accounts, indicated that some banks would also be called to answer
questions on the huge scam.
In
a branch of one of the banks, over 300 accounts were said to have been opened
in one day and all the accounts have become inactive.
A
competent source on the investigative panel, who spoke to our correspondent on
Thursday, said the federal civil servants and the banks, which had allegedly
been indicted, had been marked down for thorough investigations and possible
sanctions.
The
source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government had begun a
plan to investigate and remove the names of the indicted civil servants from
its payroll.
It
was also learnt that some of the affected officers had started resigning their
appointments as a pre-emptive measure to avert humiliation and sanctions at the
end of the investigation.
Our
correspondent gathered that out of 312,000 civil servants, whose bank accounts
had been checked so far in the exercise through the Bank Verification Number
platform, the accounts of 23,306 workers had questionable transactions.
The
exercise was said to have led to the discovery of a high level of
irregularities in salary payment.
The
source told The PUNCH, “Out of the accounts of about 312,000 civil servants
processed so far, the ministry has uncovered irregularities in about 23,306 of
them. The account holders are suspected to have been collecting double
salaries.
“These
indicted individuals are in two categories. In the first group, we found out
that the names of some civil servants, whose salaries are being processed, are
different from the names on the accounts where their salaries are paid into.
What this means is either those in this category are drawing salaries from two
sources (which could be different parastatals), or they are ‘ghost’ workers.”
It
was gathered that the panel also discovered that salaries were being paid into
some inactive accounts, which had fuelled the belief that the Federal
Government had been paying salaries to ‘ghost’ workers.
The
source added that the Federal Government had placed some banks under watch over
their roles in the unfolding salary scam.
It
was learnt that the panel had discovered that some of these inactive accounts
were domiciled in a particular branch of a bank.
“The
investigating committee discovered that in a particular branch of a bank, over
300 accounts of some civil servants were opened on the same day and all of them
have become dormant.
“By
the time the ongoing investigation is concluded, Nigerians will be shocked by
the sheer number of top and other categories of civil servants, who may be
forced to resign as a result of their complicity in the salary scam,” the
source added.
The
Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance on Media Matters, Mr. Festus Akanbi,
however, refused to confirm the preliminary findings of the panel concerning
the number of federal civil servants and banks that had been indicted by the
committee.
Akanbi,
who spoke to our correspondent on Thursday, explained that the exercise was
ongoing, adding that the public would be appropriately informed when the full
report of the panel was submitted.
The
finance ministry had said the adoption of the BVN became inevitable due to the
failure of the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System to effectively
deal with the issue of ‘ghost’ workers in the federal civil service.
According
to the ministry, the strategy of using BVN rather than requiring the physical
presence of each member of staff has significantly simplified and accelerated
the progress of the project and at a lower cost.
The
Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, had, earlier in the year, said the BVN,
which does not require a physical presence of a worker, would help accelerate
the pace of enrolment.
“To
date, despite over five years since the initiation of the project, only 20% of
public employees have actually been enrolled into IPPIS due to a variety of
reasons,” Adeosun stated.
The Minister of Information
and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, recently said some top civil servants in the
ministry were dismissed for collecting ₦400,000 each from 400 applicants whose
names were then included in the IPPIS.
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