THE wide attention being currently garnered over the seemingly intractable phenomenon of ghost workers throughout the nation is well-deserved, judging by its corruptive implication, and its potential to perpetuate a drain on public purse. The matter is worrisome to the extent that government at all levels are either paying more for non-existent workers or pensioners, than the existent ones; or are on the way to doing so. This is unacceptable. It is time for the authorities to break the obviously powerful syndicate behind the malpractice.A distinguishing feature of modern governments is their reliance on accurate data as a basis for planning, problem solving and development.Those countries that are unwilling or unable to procure adequate data are like persons firing shots in the dark where targets must necessarily be hit or miss. The irony is that this state of affairs need not happen as the advent of computers has made it relatively easy and inexpensive to acquire, store, analyse and present data in a variety of ways.It is disappointing therefore that this country regrettably has fallen behind on data acquisition.Of recent, the Federal Government, lacking reliable data, has been nonplussed by the seeming gigantic nature of its wage bill. It suspects that between 20 to 30 per cent of the personnel on its payroll are ghost workers. A previous Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Professor Oladapo Afolabi, is of the view that of the 120,000 civil servants on the payroll, the actual number of persons serving may be as low as 80,000. But these are conjectures; hence the Federal Government has decided to find out the truth by setting up the first and second phases of an Integrated Personal Payroll Information System (IPPIS). The initial report of the IPPIS covering 10 Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) in relation to ghost workers was said to be 'mind-boggling'. The second phase of the IPPIS report covering another 15 MDAs found discrepancies that were 'shocking'. President Goodluck Jonathan in the light of these disclosures decided to go the whole hog in fishing out these ghost workers in the federal civil service by establishing a committee to investigate the matter.Another area of great disquiet and abuse is with pension's administration. It seems that there are literally many 'ghost' pensioners who although long dead, frequently re-appear every month end to claim their pensions. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance, recently found that only N.5 billion of the monthly N1.5 billion police pension wage bill was legitimate. In other words, fully two-thirds of police pensioners were ghost pensioners.These figures must alarm all those who care about the health of this country. At the end of the day, it all boils down to corruption that has eaten deep into the fabric of this nation. The money wasted on ghost workers and ghost pensioners could have been utilised in solving some of the problems facing this country. But the money is diverted into private pockets. The people behind these rackets are economic saboteurs and should be treated as such.One of the reasons why corruption continues to thrive is that quite often, offenders are neither prosecuted nor jailed. We seem content to claim that a major loophole has been identified and plugged. What about the creators and beneficiaries of the loophole' In the private sector, such persons will not only be summarily dismissed from office without any benefits but will additionally be prosecuted. For sanity to germinate in this environment, the anti-corruption campaign must be seen to have teeth.We lament the fact that for more than 12 years, this country has been toying with biometric data for all Nigerians. Every few years the government comes up with a new scheme, only to be abandoned. This lack of reliable data is costing us dearly. If the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could compile a voters' register of nearly 70 million Nigerians within one month, why is it so impossible to compile a register of twice that number to capture the entire nation within a few months'Again, is it not possible to pull together all the various biometric data in the possession of government and update them' Either way, something has to be done to capture data on Nigerian citizens, which data can be used for various purposes.President Jonathan's interest in biometric data is a step in the right direction, and as a measure limiting the damage caused by insufficient data. The identification of Nigerians ought not to be embarked upon merely because a fraud has been committed; the exercise must be seen as a veritable tool of good governance.
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