Vice President Yemi Osibanjo on Monday said that the President Buhari led administration will make it difficult for ghost workers to return to the public service payroll.
Speaking at the Inter Agency Task Team (IATT) International Anti-Corruption Day 2017 in Abuja, he said that the ghost workers, whose names had been removed from the payroll had always found their ways back into the system.
But his Special Adviser, Adegbolahan Adeniran, who represented him in the occasion, said that government has now put measures in place to making their return impossible.
He said that the “Federal Government has used its anti-corruption war to weed out 50,000 ghost workers from the payroll. We are going to make it difficult for ghost workers to return.”
According to him, owing to the operation of the Treasury Single account (TSA) government has blocked so many financial leakages in different government agencies.
He cited examples with the Joint Administration and Matriculation Examination Board (JAMB) and the Nigerian Maritime administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
He recalled that JAMB never remitted more than N3million into the federation account but only this year it has remitted N5billion and still has another N3billion to remit for the year.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development and the chairman, National Stakeholders Working Group (NWSG) of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) , Dr. Kayode Fayemi said that the government on July 5, adopted the National Anti Corruption Strategy (NACS).
He said that Nigeria has upon return to civil rule, had a strong ant-corruption policy embedded in both the constitution and several organic laws.
But the policy, according to him,” has now resulted in the creation of the several anti-corruption initiatives to recover and apply proceeds of corruption.
“We have the Whistle-Blower policy which has yielded significant dividends. At the international level, Nigeria has been at the forefront of proposing resolutions on the recovery and return of stolen assets kept in foreign jurisdictions.
“We have also proposed resolutions to combat illicit financial flows most of which are from developing counties.”
The policy, said Fayemi, has instituted several initiatives to recover and apply proceeds of corruption .
H said that “we are not relenting in our effects to deal with the issues. We continue to see quickening of efforts in enforcement and sanctions as well as innovative methods to prevent corruption.”