Following the recent staff verification exercise conducted on civil servants, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, the Benue State Governor, has explained that his administration has saved N1.2 billion.
The Governor made this known on Friday, during an Extraordinary Stakeholders Meeting of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state.
It could be recalled that the State government had on Thursday revealed that about 2,500 ghost workers were uncovered across the 23 Local Government Areas of the state.
The governor, while speaking during the meeting on Friday, said that after successfully conducting the first phase of the verification exercise, some fraudulent acts were identified and eliminated from the state’s payroll.
“After the first phase of the forensic, for those in the classrooms and the local government, we discovered over 2500 ghost workers and removed them. By this, Government saved the sum of N1.2 billion,” he said.
The governor said that from what used to go to ghost schools and ghost workers which stood at N1.6 billion, Government has brought it down to N800 million, adding that the teachers whose two months salaries were being delayed as a result of the audit have started receiving alerts of their salaries.