Report: Zamfara Loses N2.3bn To Corruption Annually

A probe directed by the Zamfara State government has shown that the state loses over N2.3billion annually to corruption in the public service. The sharp practices, which spread across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), the probe panel in its report presented to Governor Abdulaziz Yari, noted had lasted for several years.
The chunk of the money, the committee headed by Alhaji Ahmed Zabarma, the chairman of the state Civil Service Commission said, was being siphoned through the education sector with the active participation of school principals and administrators at the state headquarters in Gusau.
Governor Yari had mandated the committee to ascertain the financial position of the state and the actual figure of its work force and suggest downsizing of the workforce where necessary.
The committee, which recently submitted its report to the governor, said of the 10,387 workforce on the government’s pay roll, 2,253 were ghost or redundant workers, who were smuggled into the state salary bill by dubious senior civil servants.
The report also showed that apart from the education sector, these fraudulent activities were rampant in ministries and departments such as health, environment, and tertiary institutions which pay higher salaries.
Zarbarma said in the primary and secondary schools, there were serious financial misappropriations amounting to several hundreds of millions of naira, where the State Universal Education Board (SUBEB) alone had 600 ghost workers, in addition to inflating workers’ salary to amazing amount.
At Gusau Local Education Authority, a lady, whose monthly salary is N25,000 had in her record N1.5million monthly as salary paid over several years.
A similar case was recorded in Talatar Mafara Local Education Authority, where a teacher’s salary of N33,000 was inflated to N1.3million, but the balance was being collected by some fraudulent officials.
The committee also discovered that over 1,350 ghost teachers were in the Arabic and Islamic Education Board, while many of the schools on the official list were not in existence as the board could not identify their location.
The panel said if the government faithfully implements its recommendations, the state would save N195.9million monthly and about N2.35billion annually.