In a bold move to sanitize local government finances, a Biometric Screening Committee conducting audits across the 34 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in Katsina State has identified 3,488 unqualified or fraudulent employees from the payroll, recovering a total of N4.6 million in irregular payments.
Out of the 50,172 staff members subjected to verification, 46,380 were successfully authenticated, while 3,488 were delisted for offenses including fake credentials, absenteeism, failure to appear before the panel, fraud, or refusal to comply.
The committee also estimated that full implementation of its recommendations would yield a monthly savings of N453.3 million for the state’s local governments.
Governor Dikko Umar Radda, upon receiving the committee’s report, praised the team for courageously pursuing the audit despite intense political pressures and warnings that its work could affect electoral fortunes.
He insisted that the state needed structural reform and affirmed that the report should form the basis of a White Paper for full implementation, with honesty and fairness as guiding principles.
Radda observed that many local government councils, despite receiving substantial revenue allocations, still find it difficult to meet their wage obligations due to inflated and fraudulent payroll burdens.
He named councils such as Kafur, Malumfashi, and Daura as examples where wage bills have been significantly bloated by so-called ghost workers.
Chairing the committee was Abdullahi Gagare, who detailed several of the irregularities exposed by the audit: falsified birth dates, fake academic certificates, underage employment, illegal promotions, nonattendance, and cases where staff slots were “sublet” to others.
He also flagged instances of double-dipping, where some employees drew salaries from multiple agencies, and others continued to receive pay while on leave of absence. It was from these practices that the committee recovered the N4.6 million.
In one striking case, Gagare revealed that the Education Secretary of Zango LEA colluded with accomplices to register 24 ghost workers, a clear breach of public trust.
Radda declared that the committee’s findings could potentially raise cumulative savings to N5.7 billion if adopted fully and urged strict adherence to every recommendation.
He portrayed the exercise as a fight against elite capture of public resources and urged that the reforms run deep enough to free up funds for grassroots development.
He further said that he was well aware of attempts to politicise or undermine the exercise, noting that skeptics warned him such a payroll purge could “damage his politics and cost him elections.” But he maintained that doing the right thing must supersede political expediency.
With the submission of the committee’s report now in hand, the critical challenge lies in transitioning from audit to action.
Radda has directed that the recommendations be converted into an actionable White Paper and implemented rigorously and transparently.
Observers say that if fully adopted, the measures may relieve the fiscal burden on local administrations and redirect resources toward infrastructure, service delivery, and development at the grassroots.
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