By Abel Leonard/ Ude Abigel
Nasarawa State Government has announced that it will carry out forensic audit and verification across the 13 Local Government Areas in the state to fish out ghost workers and roll back the tide of corruption in its local government administration.
State Commissioner for Local Government, Rural Development and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr. Yusuf Sarki, stated this in an interacting with journalists in Lafia.s
Yusuf said the verification and forensic audit became necessary in view to recent inactive of the councils to pay staff salaries and pensioners.
“Group of persons are planning to short change the government and pensioners by replacing the dead and retired officers with different people without the approval of the authority in charge of the councils.”
He further emphasized that the state government was not responsible for the nonpayment of local government staff, adding that the state government had often times augmented the councils’ allocation.
The commissioner however, added that the as a supervising ministry, is not responsible for any deduction from the local governments’ fund.“
“Because this data capture screening will not solve the problem, pensioners are dying while others are maneuvering their way to replace them thereby making the wage bill to rise. Insincerity of the people is responsible for this problem.”
