Nigeria Saves N118bn From 46,000 Ghost Workers --- Okonji-Iwela

Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has disclosed that as at January this year, N118billion has been saved by the Federal Government since the introduction of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) in Ministries, Departments and Agencies.


Presenting her Ministry’s scorecard in the past two years at the Ministerial Platform on Monday in Abuja, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala also said that over 46,000 ghost workers were detected in the 215 ministries, departments and agencies across the country.

She added that work is ongoing to include the remaining 321 ministries, departments and agencies on the IPPIS platform before the end of the year.

“We have set away from the manual management of our finances whereby for instance in payment, we use to send money to ministries in bulk to pay their staff and for expenses, we have now put in place 3 electronic platforms. 

The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System is in place and it is allowing us to pay staff straight through biometric data base; you can check and pay them directly now.

“This exercise has helped us weed out about 46,000 ghosts workers and saved ourselves about N118 billion”, she said.

Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala who also doubles as the Finance Minister while assuring that efforts were being made to fish out those behind the ghost workers who cut across all the ministries, departments and agencies noted the need to block all avenues that are used to siphon public funds.

The Minister explained that the Treasury Single Account was introduced to unify government bank accounts in order to maintain a consolidated view of the cash position saying that 93 ministries, departments and agencies are currently on the platform.

The Minister explained that noted that the Government Integrated Financial Management and Information System was introduced in April 2012said as part of measures to further “increase efficiency in public financial management, to improve the acquisition, allocation, utilisation and conservation of funds by ministries, departments and agencies, using automated and integrated information system.”

The CME said that through the new system, 58% of the budget has been executed and it is expected to rise to 79% by the end of the third quarter of this year.

While pointing out that N14billion has been recovered following the auditing of the subsidy payment process, she insisted that the new payment regime currently in place would stem leakages in the system, even as she disclosed that of N1 trillion in subsidy payment and found N232billion questionable.