[EDITORIAL] Imo civil service payroll fraud
FRAUD syndicates have for too long been running riot in the Imo State Civil Service. The state governor, Hope Uzodinma, highlighted this in a recent broadcast to mark his first 100 days in office, claiming that his administration had discovered 1,000 ghost workers since assuming office. This has resulted in Imo saving a whopping N2 billion monthly. This amount, viewed against the backdrop of the N1.2 billion generated internally monthly, is a rip-off that epitomises the failure of governance.
Uzodinma should not bask in the self-adulation of “discovering” ghost workers because preceding administrations charted the same course. Like his predecessors, he has failed a critical test of leadership by not invoking the instrumentality of the law to deal with the situation immediately. Payroll fraud of this magnitude is brazen criminality that will only abate if the fraudsters are identified, prosecuted and forced to disgorge their illicit gain.
Bayelsa State offers Uzodinma a good example of how to decisively deal with payroll fraud. The immediate past governor, Seriake Dickson, inherited a N6 billion monthly wage bill when he assumed office in 2012, which he pruned to N3.5 billion in his first term in office. Sanity was finally restored to the system when the syndicates in the civil service were identified and some members prosecuted and jailed.
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