Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoSF), Folasade Yemi-Esan, has disclosed that no fewer than 1618 fake civil servants have been discovered after the revalidation exercise carried out recently.
Mrs Esan however, explained that majority of them with fake and illegal appointment letters collecting salaries through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) were from Parastatals not in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Disclosing that her office is working with the anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission. (ICPC), she noted that they have also instituted whistle blowers to unravel corrupt practices in the civil service.
The Head of Service also revealed that over 116 units of two-bedroomed semi-detached bungalows build for the civil servants have been completed and will br commissioned this week.
She promised that going forward, any new employee will apply for housing house to enable them put shelter under their heads and be paying for loans during their active service years.
“Over 1,618 civil servants have been discovered to be holding illegal and fake employment letters. They did not present genuine letters during the verifications,” she said
On workers outside the country without permission; she said that; “We discovered that those that are supposed to give information to the office of the HoS are part of the deal to ensure that the postion are not declared vacant. However, recently, there was a circular that went out to all MDAs and parastals to do a physical head count of everyone on their nominal payroll receiving salary. They should appear physically and that they should forward the names of people that are not around.”
“I specified in the circular that Permanent Secretaries and CEOs that give wrong information will be held liable if anything is disovered ouside of information that was provided. Even as at today, not all MDAs have submitted something to the OHoS as we speak.
“Just last week, I also spoke with one of them that I have not seen his report on how many because the immediate thing we are going to do based on that information is to stop his salary but from what I want to do is that the number of people that have gone out of the country and are earning salary are not even in the core ministries. They are more in the parastals.
“I have done an overview of the reports that were sent to me and most of the MDAs and I actually called out one of the heads of an agency and asked him how he come about the number sent to the OHOSF as people earning salaries but not on the IPPIS.
“It is a Nigrian thing. We are running hard against the culture that tolerates it. Outsiders don’t know the basing we get everyday trying to do the right thing
“I expect that once the report comes out, anybody that is not in the list automatiucally loses their job. What we discovered in the last month of that verification is that most of them are now resigning their appointment which is good.
On the tenure of the Directors, she said: “Right now I don’t think there is any Director that has spent more than eight years that is still in service and I am glad that some took me to court to question why the CSR will say that they only have eight years to serve and the court ruled in our favour.
“The only people still in service are those that are professionals working in teaching hospitals and medical centres. Even the doctors can do administrative,” she said.
The number one civil servant equally spoke on the salary harmonisatgion, explaining that; “It has to be a gradual process. The first step is the peculiar allowance that was given to low salary earners to reach the next level and it is going to be a continuous thing.
“It is difficult to bring somebody that is high down, but it is easislier to take people in the lower rank up and the next time you take the next level up until you have a very smooth batch. So we have started work on the 40 per cent peculiar allowance given to us in an effort to fill that gap up,” she said.
Commenting on ghost workers, she said: “I reeled out the number not the cost but what I know is that in my first month in service when I asked for the number on payroll it was over 100,000 as at today there are barely 70,000. So, that means in addition to three retirement a lot of people that are not supposed to be on payroll have been cleaned up.”
Credit: The Sun
