Staff verification: Benue weeds 6,500 fake workers, saves more than N200m
The Benue State Government staff verification exercise has brought to the light about 6,500 fake workers in the state’s 23 local Government Area (LGAs).
Titus Zam, Special Adviser to Governor Samuel Ortom on Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, who made the disclosure at an accountability press briefing on Tuesday in Makurdi, said that the trimming had equally lowered the wage bill.
“Before the exercise, primary school teachers’ wage bill was N1.9 billion, now it is below N1.8 billion.
“The wage bill for the local government workers used to be N1.7 billion, but it has gone down to N1.6 billion.
“It means that the state has saved more than N200 million,” he said.
Zam said that the exercise had helped the state a great deal, but hinted that government was looking into measures to prune down the wage bill so as to free some funds for capital projects.
The official, however, lamented that the bureau had a lot of cases in courts across the state, and declared that “even five years allocation cannot be sufficient to prosecute them”. (NAN)
