FG Suspends 3000 Workers

By James Orji

The Head of Service of the Federation, HoS Folashade Yemi-Esan says the federal government has nabbed over 1,500 fake civil servants.

She also disclosed that 3000 civil servants who failed to make themselves available to the committee have now been suspended.

The workers, she said were discovered after they presented fake employment letters to the verification committee set up by the government to uncover fake and illegal recruitment in government agencies.

Yemi-Esan, revealed this at the ‘National Policy Dialogue on Entrenching Transparency in Public Office Recruitment in Nigeria’ organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC in Abuja, on Tuesday.

She said the revelation was a joint operation between  the ICPC and her office.

According to her, “Sometimes in March of 2021, this office informed the ICPC that there were quite a number of fake letters of appointments circulating in the ministries,” the civil service chief said.

“At that particular time, we discovered that in just one ministry alone, there were over a thousand individuals bearing fake letters of appointments. And they were already enrolled on the payroll.

“The Office of the Head of Service received another report, this time from the Federal Civil Service Commission itself, forwarding names of over 500 persons in various MDAs that possess fake letters of appointments.”

She explained that over 1,000 persons were discovered in one ministry, while 500 others were found in other ministries, departments and agencies during the exercise, noting that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system, IPPIS has helped in identifying unproductive, unqualified civil servants.

“In the past year, in one ministry alone, over 1,000 individuals bearing fake letters of appointment were detected.

“The office recently received a report, from the Federal Civil Service Commission, of over 500 persons in various MDAs in possession of fake letters of appointment.

“Following the Service-Wide Verification Exercise for officers recruited from 2013 – 2020, the commission also requested the suspension of salaries of over 3,000 officers across the MDAs,” she stated,’ the HoS said.

According to the figures provided by the office over 380,000 officers had been captured on IPPIS – 66,000 and 320,000 for core and non-core MDAs.