Oyo uncovers 41 ghost workers, retire 341

Oyo state government Wednesday disclosed that it uncovered 41 ghost workers in its payroll from its latest staff auditing exercise.

This was contained in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan by the chief press secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Mr Taiwo Adisa, on the report of the Implementation Committee of the Oyo state 2019/2020 Civil/Public Servants Audit and Payroll Re-engineering /Validation Exercise.

The statement said the consultants handling the staff audit indicted 602 officers and recommended them for removal from the payrolls, but the Implementation Committee affirmed 41 ghost workers; cleared 40 others of any infraction; uncovered 10 deaths; 170 systematic retirements; and affirmed the option of voluntary retirement by 341 others with irregular records of service.

It stated that the Implementation Committee had examined the report submitted by the consultants and also interacted with the affected officers before finalising the implementation model.

“The Implementation Committee of Oyo state 2019/2020 Civil/Public Servants Audit and Payroll Re-engineering/Validation Exercise has recommended the removal of 41 staff classified as “No Show” (ghost workers) by the consultants”, it said.

Part of the report reads, “It is observed that from the 602 alleged officers, one hundred and seventy (170) had already retired systematically due to no particular influence of the screening exercise and ten (10) deceased.

“Consequently, the committee agreed that out of the 602 officers involved in the report: Forty officers should be absolved and allowed to remain on government payrolls; one hundred and seventy officers who had retired systematically should be allowed on pension payrolls; and ten deceased officers should be paid their due entitlements.

It also agreed that: “Three hundred and forty-one officers that opted for voluntary retirement should be allowed to do so; forty-one officers established to be “No Show” should be removed from Government Payrolls immediately; while the list of affected officers from tertiary institutions should be forwarded to their respective Governing Councils for necessary action.”