Abia saves over N300m from ghost workers in 2 months

outstanding arrears to be offset with bailout fund

Abia State government has saved more than N300 million, nearly three months since it began the process of ridding the state civil service of the problem of ghost workers.

According to Obinna Oriaku, special adviser on Economic Affairs to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, the Integrated Payroll Verification process embarked upon by the state was yielding positive results.

“In the month of May, government was able to save N160 million from ghost workers. The summary of the state savings for both the month of May and June in salary payment stands at over N300 million,” Oriaku said.

Speaking further on salary payment in the state, Oriaku said, “we have paid all for the three months we are in charge, while the bailout fund will be used to offset arrears.”

According to him, “we had arrears before we came in. We started from when we came in, which is May, June and July. We took over on May 29th. There is no way we could have paid that same May, so we paid May in June, June in July and then July in August. The bailout fund will be used to take out all outstanding salaries and pension that we met on ground.”

The effect, according to Oriaku, was being felt by the state civil servants, saying, “please note that civil servants now take it for granted that they all will be paid at the end of every month… All the institutions in the state are back to work, while streetlight is back at Umuahia town.”

Recently, health workers in the state, under the aegis of Joint Union of Health Workers (JOHESU), protesting unpaid salary arrears, suspended their five-month-old strike following a meeting of the state leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and Governor Ikpeazu, who assured them that he would soon pay them their arrears.