The Zamfara Government on Tuesday said it would save N2.34 billion annually from the ghost workers discovered on its payroll after staff verification.
Alhaji Ahmed Gusau, Chairman of the Workers Assessment and Rationalisation Committee, revealed this while presenting the committee’s report to Gov. Abdulaziz Yari in Gusau.
According to him, the state government is saving N195 million monthly, translating to N2.34billion yearly.
Gusau said the government would save about N360million from the health sector alone, being the ministry with the highest number of ghost workers in the state.
“There are over 500 officers identified as workers in the health sector who have no places of posting and have not been signing attendance register.
“And so, they were flushed out,’’ Gusau said.
The chairman also accused the state’s ministry of finance of failure to defend the N50 million salary overpaid to the ministry, between March and June 2012.
Guasau said the committee had redeployed 1,341 workers, whose services were either not required or not relevant to their postings, to other duty posts where their services could best be utilised.
The chairman said that higher salaries that were not commensurate with the educational qualifications were paid to some workers in the health sector.
Responding, Yari commended the committee for a job well-done, and pledged to implement the recommendations without delay.
The governor announced a seven- man committee to be headed by the Commissioner for Water Resources, Alhaji Abdulkarim Tsafe, to fine tune the report.
According to him, the committe will also recommend ways of implementing the report.