7,000 ghost workers in Delta civil service

About 7,000 ghost workers were discovered when the Delta State Government screened workers in the state civil service through the biometric  capturing exercise.

The state Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, who announced this at  an interactive session with labour leaders in Asaba, said the discovery has significantly reduced the wage bill of the state.

Dr. Uduaghan said the exercise was thorough and exposed the flaws in the state’s civil service system.

Commenting on the attitude of government functionaries towards the issue of casual workers in the state, he said he was embarrassed at the unwholesome attitude of top officials of government.

The governor accused government functionaries of insincerety, explaining that the exercise, which was supposed to be done urgently, was delayed because of the dishonesty introduced into a simple exercise.

Dr. Uduaghan said as at now, the names compiled  were as many as the entire work force in the state civil service and charged those handling the issue to critically look at it.

Speaking further, he said “this casual workers issue was supposed to be a simple exercise but what do we see, dishonesty  and insincerity.

“There are so many names on the list which is almost the size of the current workers in the state.”

Explaining that the casual staff members were receiving salary before he gave the directive for ministries and parastatals to make their appointment permanent. The governor said all that was required at that time was for them to lift those names and make them permanent.

Dr. Uduaghan said instead of doing that, top officials added names to the original casual staff as if it was a fresh employment.

The governor, who promised to inject money into car and housing loans fund, urged those handling the scheme to be transparent and judicious.

Dr. Uduaghan also promised to give labour executives vehicles for movement, especially for interacting with all branches of NLC and TUC.