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Ghost workers caused by sheer negligence
2008-04-19 09:31:36
By Editor
Some two days ago, the Minister of State in the Presidents Office (Civil Service) announced the unearthing of 1,413 ghost workers who are on the payroll of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training.
This revelation is not really new. The problem has been here for years. It is not the first time we are hearing about the existence of ghost workers.
We would have imagined that there must be a regular system of updating the public service payroll. We therefore do not understand why the problem keeps cropping up.
One would find it ridiculous that an employer does not know the actual number of his employees. This is negligence of the highest order.
The government has announced that all those who are involved in the Ministry of Education scam will be taken to court.
What we would have expected is that the minister—rather than pronouncing an intention to institute charges against the culprits—would have declared to the House that these people have already been arrested, because one can derive from her statement that they are well known.
The minister went as far as naming regions which are notorious for having phantom staff.
This means that she knows the institutions concerned and it is thus clear that those who are behind the racket have already been identified.
Moreover, it seems that the entire blame has been heaped on the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, but as we all know, the process of preparing the public service payroll involves a number of ministries.
It therefore goes without saying that the problem is larger than the minister implied, and there is a big possibility that the ghost workers are plentiful in all government ministries and departments.
We appeal to the government to be serious on this matter precisely because the national cake is very small, and it should not be left to be eaten by a few crooked individuals at the expense of the majority.
It beats common sense that while this huge amount of money is ending up into the pockets of some crafty characters, schools are devoid of both teachers and vital equipment.
Just yesterday, it was reported that a primary school in Chunya District has been closed indefinitely for lacking a pit latrine.
If at all we are serious about development and we know that this is the people`s money, and that the government has been entrusted to be a caretaker, then the whole undertaking should not resemble a futile exercise of pouring a lot of water into a sack.
We would suggest that apart from other criteria, the efficiency of a cabinet minister should be gauged by the way public funds under his care—including the public service payroll—are managed.
As we stated earlier, this problem has been there for ages. We thought that with new technological advances, this would no longer have been a problem.
We are made to believe that the existence of fictitious workers is not an oversight, but a deliberate move designed by a chain of racketeers who should be brought to justice.
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