The Federal Executive Council has stepped up efforts to tackle ghost workers and payroll fraud as the government seeks to reduce waste and strengthen accountability in the public service.
Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a comprehensive forensic audit of the Federal Government’s payroll, accounting and administrative systems as part of a fresh drive to uncover ghost workers, fake government agencies and other forms of payroll fraud.
The move followed revelations that about N9.5 trillion had been allocated to incremental salary and allowance payments, a figure the Federal Government said was significant enough to warrant a thorough review of the systems through which personnel and wage-related expenditures are processed.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of Wednesday’s FEC meeting, presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Oyedele said a major component of the exercise would be a comprehensive review of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) to identify ghost workers, fraudulent personnel records and other irregularities.
He said the objective was to ensure that government salaries and allowances were paid only to legitimate civil servants while protecting public funds from leakages.
According to the minister, the government’s wage bill has come under increased scrutiny because of the scale of resources committed to salaries and allowances.
He said eliminating fraudulent personnel and tightening payroll controls would help reduce unnecessary financial pressures, improve fiscal management and ensure that public resources were deployed to genuine government functions.
Oyedele also disclosed that the Council considered a serious administrative and security breach involving the creation of fake agencies within the Federal Government.
He said unauthorised individuals had succeeded in creating a fraudulent entity that obtained both administrative and Treasury Single Account (TSA) codes, although no funds were eventually disbursed to the fake agency.
The minister described the incident as a collective failure of government systems, noting that it exposed vulnerabilities in both administrative and accounting processes.
He said the development came to light following an investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which submitted its findings to President Tinubu.
According to Oyedele, the ICPC investigation showed that the fraud went beyond a purported presidential welfare system, with the existence of a fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and other fictitious agencies also uncovered.
He said the findings prompted the President to direct the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, in collaboration with the Minister of Finance, to engage professional audit firms to conduct a forensic evaluation of the affected systems.
Oyedele said the exercise would identify existing loopholes, establish how unauthorised entities were able to obtain government codes and recommend measures to prevent a recurrence.
“The objective is to identify existing lapses, plug vulnerabilities and prevent future occurrences of such national embarrassments by strengthening oversight across all governmental institutions,” he said.
The minister stressed that the fact that the fake entities had obtained official administrative and TSA codes, even without receiving government funds, represented a major vulnerability that could not be ignored.
He said the forensic audit would therefore go beyond the specific fraudulent entities already identified to examine the broader systems and processes that made the breach possible.
Oyedele further disclosed that the government was concerned that some of the weaknesses uncovered might have existed for longer than the tenure of the present administration.
“There is a concern that these systemic vulnerabilities may have existed for longer than the current administration’s tenure,” he said.
He, however, said the government would allow the forensic audit to establish the full extent of the lapses and determine appropriate corrective measures.
The exercise, he said, would complement ongoing efforts to clean up the Federal Government’s payroll, strengthen accountability and ensure that only legitimate personnel and properly constituted government institutions have access to official administrative and financial systems.
Oyedele said the ultimate objective was to safeguard public funds, improve efficiency in government expenditure and ensure that resources meant for public servants and essential services were not diverted through fraudulent payroll and administrative arrangements.
