The Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has ordered the dismissal of some civil servants for receiving double salaries from the state government.
Akeredolu gave the order on Wednesday while receiving the report of the Committee for Verification, Scrutinisation and Clean-up of the state payroll.
The number of the affected workers was, however, not disclosed.
The governor also directed all ministries, departments and parastatals in the state to stop recruitment under any guise until the salary verification committee has concluded its assignment.
“We have over-bloated workforce, and undoubtedly, I am sure there are many ghost workers. Those who are receiving double salaries, apart from recovering the money from them, I am directing the Head of Service to get them dismissed. They must serve as deterrent to others,” he said.
Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Mr Victor Olajorin, explained that the first and major step taken by the committee was to contact the various services, including the Teaching Service Commission, Hospitals’ Management Board and Local Government Service Commission among others.
He said, “The documents were consequently scrutinised and in the process, some infractions were discovered.
“Our beam light was initially focused on TESCOM and some of the infractions detected were about: officers/pensioners receiving both salary/pension, retired officers later reappointed and drawing salary/pension, officers whose salaries are hanging among others.
“Details are contained in the Volume 1 report of the Committee. In the process, a sum of N304,859,812.51 was discovered as the aggregate loss to the State Government from the above infractions.
“In furtherance of our activities, attention was shifted to the pay register of Hospital Management Board. The committee carried out on-the-spot verification for both medical and non-medical personnel in their various facilities across the state.
“The exercise led to the discovery of some unwholesome practice like abscondment, study leave without pay, payment of salaries to officers after resignation, while some officers couldn’t be traced to any health facilities.
“So far, a sum of N192,873,592 has been discovered from HMB as the total loss to the State Government. Mr. Governor permits me to mention that the Committee has so far, identified the sum of N497,733,404 for infractions in TESCOM and HMB.”