Labour demands investigation into 23,000 ghost workers claim

Organised labour has asked the Federal Government to set up a joint investigative panel involving labour and government to look into the authenticity of the recent statement by Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, that 23,000 ghost workers had been discovered within the civil service.

Alade Lawal, secretary-general, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), in a statement to the media on Tuesday, argued that the panel had become imperative in order to forestall a situation where “thousands of innocent civil servants who have served their fatherland meritoriously for decades are thrown into the oversaturated labour market by overzealous political office holders.”

According to the ASCSN, given the tardiness that characterised the 2016 budget, the ripples of which had not completely died down, it is reasonable to insist that due diligence be done on the “ghost workers” saga.

It pointed out that few years ago, when a similar alarm was raised about “ghost workers” in the federal civil service, a thorough investigation was carried out at the end of which the whole thing turned out to be a hoax.

“Under normal circumstances, investigation should have been thoroughly carried out to determine the validity of the allegations before coming out with statement about discovery of ghost workers. The reason is that by the time a proper inquiry is undertaken and it is discovered that those who are being referred to as ghost workers are genuine employees, a lot of damage would have been done to the system. This is certainly not good enough,” the union said.

The statement noted further that “it is also inconceivable that the mere facts that some civil servants were not captured in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and the recent Bank Verification Number (BVN), an exercise that is still ongoing, became ready excuses to rush to the conclusion that thousands of “ghost workers” exist in the Federal Civil Service.

“It should be made clear that this union has publicly identified with President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft war and as such will not condone any illegality or sharp practices on the part of civil servants.”