Chairman of Emohua local government area in Rivers State, Dr Chidi Lloyd, has said his administration saved over N150 million from ghost workers after conducting the council’s first biometric exercise.
Lloyd, who disclosed this in an interview with LEADERSHIP in Port Harcourt, the state capital, said apart from uncovering non-staff who were on the council’s payroll, the biometric exercise also discovered that some of the workers had dual employment in the state.
He stated that the funds saved from the ghost workers were channelled into mobilising contractors for road projects in the LGA, including one-kilometre Eveku Road, 1.5 -kilometres Ukeli Road in Ndele and 1.2 -kilometres Ubimini-Awara Road, amongst others.
“But, the first time we did the biometrics, we saved over N150 million.
I used part of the money to mobilise for the construction of one-kilometre Eveku Road with drainage on both sides, 1.5 -kilometres Ukeli Road in Ndele with drainage on both sides, 1.2 -kilometres Ubimini-Awara Road with drainage on both sides and others.
“These are not AI, there are all there for you to see. So, all of the monies that were going into illegal pockets have now been channelled towards delivering of good governance,” the LG Chairman said.
Lloyd, who is also former leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, said his administration initiated the biometric exercise after understudying similar exercises carried out in other LGAs in the state.
“I came in and met an overbloated workforce. I saw that my colleagues had done biometrics for their council somewhere in Ahoada-West; Hon. Hope Ikiriko. So, I had to understudy how it was done. I came up with mine and found out that my LGA hitherto was running a very very unsecured system wherein nominal roles were drafted every month and names of staff were like compilation of market money.
“I said in 2021, 2022, no system should run like that. So, we had to automate our voucher; you don’t need to bring flashdrive to me every month because the salary voucher was now domiciled with the bank. What we do is to remove the names of those who had gone on retirement. What I noticed was that when typing the account numbers, they made mistakes and if the numbers doesn’t corespond, somebody from Ajaokuta receives the money, somebody from Enugu receives the money.
“These were the things I came to clean up and of course, it came with its own backlash, especially from those who were earning from that illegality. It was an opportunity to put in names; they called themselves ‘payroll’. And I now said as it is now, the ‘payroll’ has no job again because there was nothing to put. So, I automated it and the bank has it.
“In doing so too, we found a lot of illegalities; people who were not our staff, people who were employed the same day but earning different salaries. So, we said no, there cannot be different policies for different people. We harmonised all of that. That is also what led me into discovering that there were persons who were on dual employment in the state.
“When they took that matter up, you will recall that I have been having a running battle with some ghost workers in my LGA. They will go and block the East-West Road but I am not moved by all that. If you fight corruption, corruption will fight back.
“I was determined to fight corruption and so, I told them to show me one person I employed. Not even one person because we must do things right. I don’t need to abuse the office because of the privilege that I have. It is an LGA that has 14 wards, let everybody have equal opportunities. That is what we did and we were called all kinds of names.”
