Enhancing The Nigeria’s Civil Service Payroll System

The Nigerian civil service system has in recent times been deeply characterized by a bunch of cankerworms known as ‘ghost workers’.

The syndrome, which isn’t peculiar to the federal level, is indeed ubiquitous that no certain level/unit of government is exempted whenever its scourge is being discussed. Funnily enough, the anomaly has lingered that anyone could insinuate that it’s a norm.

Three years ago, precisely on Thursday, 5th May 2016, during the meeting between federal ministries and Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) in Lagos State as organized by the Minister of Information and Culture – Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the then Finance Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun unequivocally disclosed that the then N165 billion monthly salaries cum allowances of federal civil servants was over-bloated, thus could no longer be sustained by the Federal Government (FG).

Mrs. Adeosun who was speaking on the economy reform agenda of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, stated that the said fund represented about forty percent (40%) of the total spending made by the FG.

According to her, the figure was outrageous, hence the government was pursuing aggressive measures towards detecting as well as prosecuting ghost workers and other saboteurs in the system.

She landed with a mind-boggling revelation that the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), which wasn’t fully functional, still had names of about ten thousand (10,000) workers on its payroll regularly serviced by the FG’s coffers.

In a related development, in the same 2016, over a huge sum of N4 billion fraud was reportedly discovered in Aso Rock, Nigeria’s Seat of Power. The discovery was made by President Buhari’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Major Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd).

Aside from his alleged shocking discovery, which was made after a general security auditing and verification exercise ordered by Mr. President, the NSA further disclosed that  names of twenty-nine (29) ghost security personnel had been on security payroll in the Presidency over the years.

The various states and LGAs across the federation aren’t exceptional. On Thursday, 26th May 2016, the Bayelsa State government said it had uncovered payroll fraud in the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), with the discovery of over 765 illicitly employed teachers in the existing eight local government councils in the state.

According to the aforementioned report from Bayelsa, names of fifty (50) dead teachers were equally found on the payroll of Ogbia Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) alone in the State.

In spite of the thus far war against corrupt practices or graft invented by the Buhari-led government since inception, the payroll of most government MDAs, and even that of the pensioners, at various levels are still presently influenced by the enemies of the society. This very societal ill has hitherto been causing the country a colossal economic mayhem.

It’s also more worrisome to note that despite the invention and onward implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) by Nigeria’s government, the ugly trend still lingers. This simply implies that corruption remains the country’s prime plight as regards economic emancipation.

It’s so baffling that in this digital age, Nigeria is still lagging behind in regard to adequate utilization of the numerous gains of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). We can’t continue indulging ourselves in retrogressive issues in an era when ICT or Hi-Tech has succeeded in simplifying everything, or unraveling every mystery related to personnel information and management.

Nigeria’s problem ab initio, had been lack of orientation and corruption. The people she had had in positions of authority have seemingly remained deceitful and adamant concerning the lingering payroll palaver in the country, perhaps owing to lack of political will occasioned by corruption.

However, we ought to be immensely joyful that the current administration apparently detests graft profusely. But it does not stop at just having an interest in a certain cause, but ensuring the needful is aptly considered and done.

Hence, as the Buhari–led government is ostensibly interested in getting it right, it must acknowledge that obtaining a comprehensive database for all the federal workers is long overdue. Such measures can only be actualized via a forensic approach.

To this end, a special unit/department must be created by law under the Ministry of Finance. The proposed unit is subject to be manned by well qualified and reliable IT experts; and no one ought to have access to the department, except its staff and the director/HOD.

Additionally, an agency comprising thoroughly scrutinized individuals ought to be set up by law to monitor or oversee the day-to-day activity of the department. The agency would ascertain whenever a worker dies or retires, as the case may be, among other likely events, and thereafter ensure that the record is duly implemented by the unit.

Moreover, from time-to-time through their oversight functions, the federal legislators should invite the members, particularly the chairman, of the agency to keep them abreast of happenings. This must not be compromised for any reason whatsoever.

For the above unit to function tactically and properly, every federal MDA must equally boast of a competent and reliable IT unit that would regularly update that of the Finance Ministry being the umbrella body, on matters relating to employment, death, retirement, expulsion, retrenchment, or what have you.

The agency as mentioned above would assist in monitoring the genuineness and adequacy of the aforementioned cooperation. For efficiency’s sake, the unit must engage a viable and reliable software consulting firm toward ensuring holistic update of its software maintenance.

The measure ought to as well be replicated on the part of payment of pensions and gratuities. And, the various state governments should, on their part, endeavour to borrow a leaf from the overall proposed approach. It’s arguably time the governments at all levels fully embraced ICT towards enjoying forever.

Above all, the authorities must tackle the unbridled corruption with the last drop of their blood, acknowledging that nothing will work as planned if it is marred by graft.

This is an inevitable sacrifice the concerned authorities need to make towards salvaging the entire system of this monster that has already eaten deep into our bone marrow.