By Sampson Boroh
As part of efforts to rejig the state civil service, the Bayelsa State government has uncovered 612 ghost workers in its payroll.
This was discovered in a report of the committee headed by technical adviser to the Governor Douye Diri on Revenues and Accounts, Timipre Seipulou, which reviewed grade levels and steps of local government and primary school staff.
The 612 ghost workers were drawn from public primary schools across the state.
According to the report, of the 7,207 primary school teachers were investigated, of which 612 were confirmed as ghost workers.
Presenting the report to the State Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, chairman of the review committee, Seipulou, said the headmasters of the schools confirmed them as ghost workers.
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Seipulou, according to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media to the Deputy Governor, Doubara Atasi, on Tuesday, said the Committee reviewed a total of 14,258 cases in the various local government councils.
The statement said the committee reviewed 7,207 primary school teachers, 5,893 council staff and 1,189 health workers all in the local government service.
Seipulou noted that the Committee conducted a staff verification exercise using the March 2021 payroll as a template and discovered some anomalies.
The report added that 573 staff were not in the payrolls but were said to be physically present in the schools, while names of 10 dead and 13 retired staff were found in the payrolls.
The Committee however recommended the setting up of a special team to review cases of staff who appear in the payrolls but are not in schools as well as removal of dead and retired staff from the wage bill.
It also advised government to use the April 2021 payrolls, grade levels and steps report as a basis to conduct physical verification of all staff with an Oracle Team on the ground to capture the biometrics of the workers during the verification exercise.
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Receiving the report, the state Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, commended the Committee for doing a thorough work that would help in repositioning the local government councils for better service delivery.
He promised to convey the report to Governor Douye Diri and work closely with all relevant authorities in carrying out what he described as segmented implementation of the committee’s recommendations.
The 33-member Committee to Review of Grade Levels and Steps of Local Government and Primary School Staff was constituted by the State Governor, Douye Diri, in April this year.
