BREAKING: FG Paid N37.1bn Salaries Last Year To Ghost Workers — ICPC

Fresh report has revealed that N37.1bn was last year paid in salaries by federal government to ghost workers. The fraudulent payment defied the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). The discovery and many others were made by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC)......READ THE FULL STORY>>.....READ THE FULL STORY>>

This is as per The Nation.

It said ICPC uncovered 22,074 suspicious personnel on the payroll of the Federal Government, with the government paying N37,103,337,614.40 last year to the suspicious workers.

According to the publication, the affected personnel were located in Ministries, Departments , Agencies, tertiary institutions and the Nigeria Police Force(NPF), with 4,190 ex-policemen found on the IPPIS payroll.

In the case of MDAs, 12,714 personnel were on the payroll but not in the service wide nominal roll between January and December last year, adding that the monetary value of the 12,174 personnel was put at N34,808, 740,634.37.

The highlights, the online news medium added, were contained in the report of a comprehensive review of the IPPIS by the commission as part of the anti-corruption system review by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“Investigators have discovered that the IPPIS have been tampered with, manipulated and allegedly padded with ghost workers or suspicious personnel.

“According to ICPC investigators, there were many cases of fraud in the IPPIS in the payroll of the MDAs and the Nigeria Police Force(NPF).

“Some of the corrupt practices in 20 MDAs include receiving of double salary, inclusion of names on IPPIS; use of fictitious names to divert public funds; operation of two IPPIS accounts; and ghost workers.

“For instance, about 95 personnel across all the MDAs had their names on the payroll and the nominal roll but their names were “not the same with the names that came up when verified via banking application.

“Eight of the 95 suspicious beneficiaries have “the same family name and one of them is linked to two IPPIS accounts,” the publication wrote.