No fewer than 22,074 suspicious personnel have been identified on the Federal Government’s payroll by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
It was learnt that the personnel were found across various Ministries, Departments, Agencies and tertiary institutions.
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) was allegedly the most implicated, according to Daily Sun.
The total financial impact of these 12,174 personnel was estimated at N34,808,740,634.37.
The commission found that last year, the government disbursed N37,103,337,614.40 to these suspicious employees, despite the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The findings were contained in a report that resulted from a comprehensive review of the IPPIS conducted by the commission as part of the anti-corruption system assessment initiated by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
According to the report, there were 12,714 personnel in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), listed on the payroll who were not included in the service-wide nominal roll from January to December of last year.
Investigators also revealed that the IPPIS has been subjected to tampering, manipulation, and alleged padding with ghost workers or suspicious personnel.
While, approximately 4,190 former police officers were found on the IPPIS payroll.
According to investigators from the ICPC, numerous instances of fraud have been identified in the IPPIS payrolls of the Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs), and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
Corrupt practices observed in 20 MDAs include double salary payments, inclusion of fictitious names on the IPPIS, the use of fake identities to embezzle public funds, the operation of two IPPIS accounts, and the presence of ghost workers.
Approximately 95 personnel across various MDAs were found to have names listed on both the payroll and the nominal roll, yet discrepancies arose when their identities were verified through banking applications.
Among these 95 suspicious beneficiaries, eight share the same family name, and one individual is connected to two different IPPIS accounts.
Twenty-four workers from approximately 20 MDAs were reportedly receiving double salaries from their respective agencies, and in some cases, from additional sources.
212 officers at the Ministry of Works, listed on the IPPIS payroll, with a combined monthly salary amounting to N31,986,324.40, were found to be absent from both the ministry’s nominal roll and the service-wide nominal roll of IPPIS.
The commission said: “The general overview of the Nominal Roll and Payroll of MDAs furnished by IPPIS and subjected to an analysis established a quantum disparity of 12, 174 personnel between the two parameters (nominal roll and payroll) used in the analysis.
“The said 12,174 personnel were visibly on the payroll but not on the service wide nominal roll between January and December 2023.
“The monetary value of the 12, 174 personnel is put at N34,808,740,634.37within the period under review. Included in the service wide disparity between the payroll and the nominal roll were the specific discoveries made from some MDAs used as a pilot scheme.”
“But the fraud was allegedly more entrenched in the Nigeria Police Force with thousands of ex-employees on the payroll.”
The report added: “The analysis of NPF payroll focused on December 2023 nominal and payroll obtained from IPPIS for the purpose of comparison. The nominal and payroll have populated names of 350,028 and 312,047 respectively.
“It was discovered on the nominal roll that 37, 160 staff were described as “ex-employees. However, on the same nominal roll spreadsheet, 37,129 were described as “inactive” whilst the balance of 31 staff were also categorized as having “Active” status.
“Furthermore, 4,190 staff of NPF, described as “ex-employees” were found on the payroll of IPPIS to have received December 2023 salary amounting to N980,273,690.51.
“It was discovered that 3, 228 of the 4, 190 have their records consistent in all parameters used for validation on the payroll such as the names, IPPIS numbers and account numbers.
“Conversely, the account numbers of the remainder 962 staff were compared with that on the payroll and the findings revealed that the names of staff and bank names were inconsistent.”