The federal government, through the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, has said that in the last one year, it uncovered 1,618 workers in the civil service with illegal and fake employment letters and they have been deleted from the Integration Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS).
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, made this known on Wednesday in Abuja, during a media parley organised as part of programmes marking the 2024 Civil Service Week, with a theme: ‘Education an African fit for the 21st Century: Building Resilient Education System for Increased Access to Inclusive Longlife, Quality and relevant Learning in Africa’.
Yemi-Esan said that through physical verification conducted by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government, the once over-bloated federal civil service has now been reduced from over 100,000 workforce to 69,308, which has been verified and on the payroll.
She revealed that apart from the ghost workers who were parading fake employment letters, there was also the issue of some civil servants who left the country for greener pastures overseas that were caught napping during the physical verification exercise.
The Head of Civil Service further said that some of them who came into the country for the verification exercise one or two weeks after the exercise had been conducted under the pretext that they were not aware of the scheduled physical verification exercise, were graciously given two weeks to appear for the verification exercise.
She said instead of waiting for the two weeks in addition to the days they had already spent in Nigeria, a lot of them tendered their resignation letters because no UK organisation could afford to give them two additional weeks in the country to perfect the verification process.
Yemi-Esan while speaking on the issue of endemic corruption in the public service, said her office has been working in synergy with the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure that underhand dealings were eliminated from the system.
She also spoke on the efforts to reposition the Federal Civil Service for optimum and quality service to Nigerians, while expressing confidence that by the end of 2025, the entire Service would be fully digitized.
She said her Office has been working closely with Galaxy Backbone to ensure the provision of broadband internet services to all MDAs, adding that her Office has gone digitalised, as mail and proposals from individuals and corporate bodies must be sent to her Office via a designated email address.
The Head of Civil Service further disclosed that significant progress has been made by the current administration to transform and digitize work processes.
“From the service-wide perspective, all MDAs, all other ministries are also running with the digitalization programme and there are different stages of implementation, but they have a mandate for all to achieve full migration by the end of 2025,” she stated.
