The Gambia government has declared war on ghost workers who cost the administration an estimated D23.9 million last year alone.
A recent audit of the public service found that several state institutions are infested with shadowy figures who collect salaries without officially being entitled to be in the official payroll of the administration.
Speaking before members of the national assembly on Wednesday, Public Service Minister Baboucarr Bouye, said his ministry has been working closely with the Accountant General’s Department in bid to recover monies paid to ghost workers.
Figures from a staff audit last year suggested that at least 1,430 supposed members of staff of public institutions were unidentified, leading to questions about their employment and the salaries they have been receiving.
According to Mr. Bouye so far just D2 million has been recovered from the total of D23,976,250 being sums lost to fictitious payments to shadowy figures within the Gambian civil service payroll.
The minister warned that those salaried ghost workers would be eventually unmasked and prosecuted should they continue with the tendency and refuse to return monies mistakenly paid to them.
To this end Bouye said his ministry has made a written request to the Solicitor General and Legal Secretary to intervene and obtain a court order for legal action to be taken against ghost workers.
His ministry is on the verge of publishing the names of those in question to give them notice to settle the monies or face legal action.
Public institutions named as harbouring such undeserved beneficiaries of monies from the state are the ministries of agriculture, basic and secondary education, health and the livestock department.
Minister Bouye was responding to questions from members of the national assembly over current efforts to banish ghost workers from such public institutions and stop the financial leakage resulting from their illicit presence.
WN/as/APA