A Granite News investigation drawing on government payroll data has identified approximately 126,000 names on federal and state government payrolls that correspond to employees who are deceased, retired, resigned or never existed.
The ghost worker phenomenon costs the federation an estimated N180 billion annually in fictitious salary payments.
In one state ministry, we found 847 employees on the payroll whose National Identification Numbers matched deceased persons. In a federal agency, 234 employees had received salaries for between two and eleven years after their deaths.
The investigation cross-referenced payroll data with records from the National Population Commission, NIMC and pension records to identify discrepancies.
