I did not believe in ghosts, but with the Nigerian ghost workers phenomenon, my unbelief has been shaken. So, who is a ghost worker? – “someone who appears on a company’s payroll but who doesn’t actually work for the company”.
Quoting the former Finance Minister, Mrs Iweala, “by 2015, implementation of the IPPIS had led to the elimination of about 65,000 ghost workers, thus saving the government about $1.1billion in fraudulent payroll costs”.
Since 2015, there have also been several numbers rolled out about more ghost workers that were eliminated and the ghost salaries that were saved.
However, there are unanswered questions that smell like impunity.
Let us say that last month, there were 10 names on an MDA’s payroll, and upon adoption of IPPIS this month, we found out that 3 of the 10 are ghosts. Who collected the salaries of the 3 ghosts for last month? If it was paid in cash, somebody showed up, collected the money and signed. If it was paid to bank accounts, it means we have the full information including the picture, signature, BVN and biometrics of these ghosts.
Who are these ghosts, and why have we never shown interest in naming and shaming them, recovering the ghost salaries they have collected in the past and making them face the law for defrauding all of us? Someone said, maybe because they are ghosts! I hereby advocate, that the anti-corruption war be extended to the spirit world where Nigerian ghost workers seem to reign in absolute impunity.
