N5.5tn payroll: FG stops workers’ salaries not on IPPIS
The Federal Government will on Friday stop the salaries of any public officer whose records cannot be verified on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
This was made known in a statement signed by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, and made available to journalists by her Director of Communications, Mohammed Ahmed, on Wednesday.
Exclusively reported that an extension was given to workers to verify their details after which their October 2023 salaries would be seized.
According to the statement, a two-week verification, which would end on Friday, was put in place as an act of magnanimity for officers who did not participate in the earlier verifications.
The statement said, “Adequate arrangements were put in place for a smooth exercise in designated areas of the FCT, however, the officers’ impatience and lack of orderliness in the first two days made the exercise rowdy. This has been duly addressed and the two-week exercise, scheduled to end on Friday, October 27, 2023, is progressing very well.
“The verification of records of all civil servants will be finalised at the end of the ongoing exercise and any officer whose record could not be verified will be delisted from the payroll of government.”
It recalled that in 2013, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, being the repository of official records and information on all public servants, was saddled with the responsibility of cleansing the record on the payroll.
Leveraging technology, the statement added that the office opened a verification portal in April 2017 and directed all public servants to carry out online updates of their records.
The office, it added, carried out aggressive sensitisation and publicity via official, conventional, and social media.
According to the statement, an initial period of three months was given for compliance, which was extended to one year, May 2018, to enable all officers to update their records.
The statement added, “Sequel to another wide publicity accompanied by numerous pre-verification sensitisation visits by IPPIS staff to ministries, extra-ministerial Departments, and Agencies nationwide, the second phase of the exercise, the physical verification, commenced in 2018.
“In this regard, 500 staff from the OHCSF were trained and deployed, in well-communicated and coordinated phases, to the 36 states of the federation and the FCT between 2018 and 2019 to enable officers to carry out the physical verification in their states and save them to from travelling to Abuja.”
The statement maintained that some erring officers’ pleas to be given the last opportunity to comply were granted, adding that the portal was, therefore, reopened from October 3 to13, 2023, for them to update their records, and now till Friday, October 27, 2023, before action would be taken on defaulters.
Rise in government workers
the number of workers on the Federal Government’s payroll rose from 1.14 million in June 2020 to 1.5 million in August, showing an increase of 360,000 workers in about three years.
Data obtained from the website of the IPPIS website showed that there were 696 MDAs and 1.14 million workers in 2020.
The website page read, “There are 696 MDAS on IPPIS Platform as at June, 2020. The department is responsible for processing and payment of salary to over one million (1,139,633) Federal Government employees across the 696 MDAs.
“IPPIS’ aim is to enrol into the platform, all Federal Government MDAs that draw personnel cost fund from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Since inception of the IPPIS project in April 2007, the department have saved the Federal Government of Nigeria billions of naira by eliminating thousands of ghost workers.”
In August 2023, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, revealed that the Federal Government’s personnel cost was over N5tn, with 1.5 million workers on its payroll.
This increase occurred despite the identification of about 70,000 ghost workers in June 2022.
The Federal Government-backed Integration Personnel and Payroll Information System exposed and eliminated about 70,000 ghost workers in the civil service system, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr. Dasuki Arabi, said.
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