The recently appointed Zamfara State Commissioner of Finance, Rabiu Garba-Gusau has uncovered how the administration of former Governor Abdulazeez Yari installed 4,972 non-existent workers to be collecting salaries worth over ₦216 million monthly.
Addressing a press conference on Saturday, the commissioner disclosed that the discovery was done following a first attempt at verifying the Zamfara State Government workers payroll.
According to the commissioner, the recketeering persisted under the supervision of the Mr Yari’s former Commissioner of Finance, Mukhtar Shehu-Idris (Kogunan Gusau).
Mr Garba-Gusau added that some of the discoveries included non-existent staff who collect monthly salaries and existing staff who collect multiple salaries.
“There are staff whose list is not part of the state civil service but said they were simply authorised to be included in the payroll from the office of the Head of service.” the Commissioner disclosed.
According to him, there are among them, 1640 staff whose account numbers are not on the server and another 119 whose names on the payroll differ from the account numbers benefitting from their monthly pay.
“In fact, a check further revealed to us that some names collecting salaries in the state do not even have account numbers with us.
“Instead, numbers similar to GSM numbers are what is provided, yet salaries go into certain account numbers at the end of the day,” the commissioner revealed.
“We have stopped the payment of these salaries and our investigation will continue and we shall make sure that scarce resources of Zamfara State no longer are siphoned through fraudulent means,” Mr Garba-Gusau assured.
