HOW IPPIS verification exposed 1,618 ghost workers
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan, said, on Wednesday, that the verification exercise of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System had exposed 1,618 civil servants with “fake/illegal’ employment letters.”
She also said that so far, “69,308 civil servants who participated in the compulsory verification exercise have been fully integrated into the IPPIS after their verifications.”
She said this on Wednesday in Abuja, during a parley with media executives in commemoration of the 2024 Civil Service Week Celebrations.
She also said that the verification exercise, “exposed 1,618 civil servants with ‘fake/illegal’ employment letters.”
Yemi-Esan said as part of efforts to build the capacity and talent of civil servants, 8,905 workers were trained under the Structured Mandatory Assessment-Based Training Programme in the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan.
She said her fight against corruption in the civil service had led the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to identify and investigate over 3,600 public servants.
“There are efforts to tackle Nigerians who have relocated abroad doing new jobs, but are still under the payroll of the civil service. The Federal Government is going hard on them, as many of them are voluntarily resigning after the physical verifications,” Yemi-Esan said.
She said civil servants who were outside the country without official permission and still on the payroll would be sacked after the ongoing verification was completed.
She said she did an overview of the report sent to her and discovered that a number of workers who had gone out of the country and were earning salaries were not even in the core ministries but mostly in the parastatals.
“It is a Nigerian thing. We are running hard against the culture that tolerates it. Outsiders don’t know the bashing we get every day trying to do the right thing. I expect that once the verification report comes anybody who is not in the country automatically loses his job. What we discovered in the last month of that verification is that most of them are now resigning their appointment, which is a good development,” Yemi-Esan said.
Meanwhile, the HoS will on 14 August this year retire from her position.
This was disclosed on Wednesday in Abuja by the Director, Communications in her office, Mohammed Ahmed, during the parley with media executives.
“This parley is the last Dr. Yemi-Esan would be superintending as the HoCSF,” Mohammed said.
Yemi-Esan will be 60 years on August 14 this year, the mandatory retirement age for civil servants in core Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The PUNCH reports that this year’s civil service week is with the theme ‘Educate an African Fit for the 21st Century: Building Resilient Education Systems for Increased Access to Inclusive, Lifelong, Quality and Relevant Learning in Africa’.
The immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari on 18 September 2019 appointed Yemi-Esan as the acting HoCSF with immediate effect, following the removal of the former HOCSF Mrs Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita.
Yemi-Esan, who was later on 4 March 2020 inaugurated, was then serving as the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
