The Kebbi Government has begun biometric verification of all civil servants in its employment in order to fish out ghost workers.

Murtala Gotomo, a spokesman in the Office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) put out the statement in Birnin Kebbi on Thursday.

Safiyanu Garba-Bena, the acting Head of Kebbi Civil Service, directed all permanent secretaries in the state to compile and submit to his office authentic lists of their staff with immediate effect.

Mr Garba-Bena said that the exercise is designed to provide the government an accurate and reliable record of its personnel numbers, and clean-up its payroll.

He said data collected from the exercise will enable the government determine if the billions of naira expended monthly on staff salary are being paid to identifiable and verifiable civil servants, and make savings from an updated personnel record.

The head of service strongly warned the permanent secretaries to submit an accurate list of tall staff members.

“The measure is taken in order to avail the state government with the actual number of workforce and also to determine those who have died or retired from service since 2015 to date.

“Governor Abubakar Bagudu is concerned over the increasing wage bill despite the fact that available records are showing retirements and deaths in the civil service,” he said. 

(NAN)