The Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, shared on Thursday that the government found out about 523 workers who didn’t exist in the last three years. He said this during an event where new biometric supervisors were being trained in Gombe.
Yahaya, who couldn’t attend the event but was represented by his deputy, Manassah Jatau, mentioned that the government saved around N1.5 billion because these 523 workers didn’t attend the verification exercise for civil servants since October 2021.
He explained that they introduced a system using biometrics to better keep track of how many workers are actually employed by both the state and local governments.
This system included deploying 4,000 Biometric Machines Attendance Registers across the state to tackle the problem of ghost workers.
The governor mentioned, “Since 2021, this new approach has helped us save about N23,758,858 every month.”
The State Commissioner of Finance, Muhammad Magaji, added that the government received $4 million through the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) program.
He emphasized that implementing the biometric system not only helped the state meet certain international standards but also revealed over 500 workers who weren’t contributing to productivity in Gombe State.
This discovery resulted in saving about N24 million every month, with a total saving of over N1 billion.
The money saved through this process isn’t kept by the government but is instead used to pay promotion arrears and outstanding gratuities.
Magaji clarified that this action was not about reducing funds by removing workers from the payroll, as some people might have thought.
