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The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun on Thursday revealed that among the corrupt civil servants recently exposed by the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) policy, was one who used to collect 20 salaries every month.
Speaking to the Senate Committee on Finance during the budget defence, Adeosun said that the 23,000 ghost workers discovered in the Federal Civil Service would be handed over to EFCC for prosecution.
The adoption of BVN in processing salary payments by the federal government had stunningly thrown up no fewer than 23,000 ghost names on its payroll, a development that raised concerns about the huge amount of monies that may have been stolen from the nation’s coffers through such leakages in the federal civil service.
Adeosun said:
“What the IPPIS-BVN registration has shown us has been a real revelation. We have identified that there are people who appear on our payroll multiple times. BVN links all the accounts of that person, so we are seeing in our payroll 20 names to one BVN number”
The awestruck Senate committee agreed with the minister and directed that the attorney-general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, begin the prosecution and sanctioning of all individuals, firms and banks that aided the inclusion of the 23,000 ghost workers on federal government’s payroll.