Katsina discovers 9,000 ghost workers

GOVERNOR Ibrahim
Shema of Kastina State has
said his government
discovered 9,000 ghost
workers on the payroll of the
state.
Shema, who addressed
stakeholders in Abuja,
promised that his
administration will do
everything possible to stamp
out the ghost workers
syndrome in the state.
He explained that before the
implementation of the
payment of N18,000
minimum wage, his
administration embarked on
the biometric capturing of
the civil servants in the state.
The biometric capturing
exercise, according to him,
was conducted by the state
government in collaboration
with the state chapter of
Nigerian Labour Congress,
NLC, as well as a consultant,
which led to the discovery of
9,000 ghost workers.
On the importance attached
to education by his
administration, Shema said:
“Since inception, the
administration has made
education priority after
realising that a lot of our
children are out of school.
“Education is the number
one item on the priority list
of this administration. More
than N40 billion had been
committed to this sector in
the past two years. The effect
of this massive investment is
in schools enrollment figure
of the last five years.
“Whereas in 2004/2005
session only 142,729
students were in secondary
school, the figure jumped to
1,045,141 in 2008/2009
session and 1,524,172 in the
2009/2010 session.
“Similarly, primary school
enrollment, during the
period, went up from
1,001,447 in 2005 to
1,278,418 in 2009.”