•Govt discovers 2,021 ghost workers
The Oyo State government has dismissed 662 civil and public servants for possessing fake West Africa Examination Certificate (WAEC) results.
Head of Service (HoS) Soji Eniade said they were discovered during certificate verification.
Eniade said 305 were found in the local government service; 152 in the Ministry, Department and Agencies; 149 in theTeaching Service Commission (TESCOM); 28 in parastatal corporations; 26 in Academic institutions, and two State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
“An average civil servant should have his certificate on ground, the primary school leaving certificate, WAEC certificate and higher degree certificate.
“Every civil servant was requested to submit his certificate and it was the copies of the certificates submitted that the consultant used in verifying their authenticity,“ he said.
Eniade said the exercise was still on, adding that workers have the right to prove themselves before the committee.
He said 2,021 fictitious names were discovered on the government’s payroll.
Eniade listed them: “One thousand, four hundred and thirty-two pensioners; 84 local government workers and 505 public service staff.
“This is part of the restructuring process, which focuses on quality and quantity of public and civil servants. We adopted the usage of BVN to avoid fictitious names on the payroll.
“The names of the 2,021 have been expunged from the payroll because we can only count them as ghost workers.”
Eniade added that queries have been issued to the accounting officers of all MDAs where ghost workers were discovered.
He also said 684 workers were not found at their duty post.
”A committee has been put in place for the final verification and the result will soon be out. This exercise is not a witch-hunt but a check to improve workers’ efficiency.”