By Beatrice Gondyi
The Bauchi state government has detected 715 workers supposedly in the service that were neither in the nominal nor payroll of the state.

The Deputy Governor, Senator Baba Telah who heads a verification committee, set up last month by Governor Bala Mohammed to fish out ghost workers in the state payroll, expressed regret that most of the problems associated with payment of salaries were created by the immediate past administration.

“We have inherited a system that has gone beyond the capacity of the immediate past government to solve, but most of the problems are created by those that are in that government”. Deputy Governor stated.

Senator Baba Tela who was addressing the press on the outcome of his committee’s report, said due to the dwindling revenues accruable to the state, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become difficult now to pay the monthly salaries of civil servants, not to talk of undertaking other economic development and social work.

“We are doing what we are doing in terms of development as a result of the sheer determination of His Excellency, Governor Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed to ensure that he has left some legacy projects on the ground, otherwise it is not possible to get an allocation from the federal government to say salaries, mandatories and execute developmental projects”.

He explained that the problems of salaries/pensions payment in the state and probably other states in the federation is a cankerworm problem that requires sitting down to address it properly, otherwise, it would keep recurring affecting the level of development the government has in the state.

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Tela presented to the press a booklet containing approval for various categories of civil servants and individuals that from 2008 to date have increased in their salaries and pensions for the government to take a decision on them, saying monies accruing to these people are almost half of monthly salaries of the state

Also speaking during the briefing, the secretary of the committee who is also the secretary to the state government, Alhaji Muhammad Sabi’u Baba explained that the 715 workers have their salary payments stopped unless a genuine clearance is presented to the committee.