The Abia State Government has successfully uncovered approximately 2,300 phantom names on its payroll, resulting in monthly savings of over N200 million. This achievement was made possible through an ongoing verification process of civil servants and other public workers in the state.
Deaconess Njum Onyemenam, the State Accountant General, revealed that these significant savings were attained by implementing a unified payment system. She further emphasized that the verification exercise is still in progress, and the government anticipates additional savings in the future.
“On the whole, our ongoing verification of workers in the state, local governments, and pensioners has led to savings of N220 million thus far. By utilizing the unified payment system, we have successfully eliminated at least 2,300 ghost names from the payrolls, and we remain committed to identifying more as the exercise continues,” Accountant General stated.
She also confirmed that Governor Otti issued a directive resulting in the clearance of outstanding April salaries that had been left unpaid by the previous administration. Additionally June pensions were disbursed to retirees. In line with this commitment, local government staff members who were excluded from the June salary payments due to their failure to submit verified payment schedules will receive their salaries this week, Onyemenam added.
