The Enugu State government says it has begun the physical verification of local government workers in the state to fish out ghost workers and ensure an effective and productive workforce.

Chidiebere Onyia, the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), who monitored the exercise to ascertain the level of workers’ compliance on Friday, said the process was fair to all and satisfactory in line with established best practices.

Speaking to journalists after the inspection of the exercise at the Enugu North Council Areas, Mr Onyia disclosed that the physical verification exercise was another phase of the verification process, which had been ongoing since 2023.

He insisted that there was a need for the government to know the status and identity of the actual staff in every local government area, and those who illegitimately made their way into the respective local government payrolls.

According to him, his unannounced visit was to know how punctual and dedicated the workers have been in the discharge of their official duties.

He stressed that the state could not continue to utilise taxpayers’ money to service the wage bills of ghost workers and those who had abandoned their workplaces and failed to discharge their responsibilities for the growth of the state.

“The verification team that is here will go through a verification process that includes the workers’ appointment letter and their schedules, and we are going to ensure that their biometrics that were captured and presented to us reflect in what we have seen here.

“This is because we also know that people are going on filling out information online, but they are not the actual people present here. So, we didn’t tell anybody we were coming today, and none of the local government areas knew which local government we would show up.

“So, we chose Enugu North today, and as you can see, we did not have a significant number to justify what was on our payroll,” Mr Onyia said.

The SSG, while lamenting that the local government system had become a dumping ground for people who think they can corruptly influence the system because they know highly placed people, assured that the system would be overhauled by this present administration.

This, he said, would enhance productivity aligning with Gov. Peter Mbah’s plan of moving the state’s GDP from $4.4 billion to $30 billion.

He stated that the exercise would be conducted in the 17 local government areas in the state, while the state team would continue to monitor all the exercises and take appropriate measures against those that failed to be captured in the exercise.

The state government, on Thursday, concluded the online registration exercise for all the Local Government workers in the state.

(NAN)