9,000 Ghost Workers discovered in Kastina State

Gov. Shema

GOVERNOR Ibrahim Shema of Kastina State has said his government discovered 9,000 ghost workers on the payroll of the state.

Shema, who addressed stakeholders in Abuja, promised that his administration will do everything possible to stamp out the ghost workers syndrome in the state.

He explained that before the implementation of the payment of N18,000 minimum wage, his administration embarked on the biometric capturing of the civil servants in the state.

The biometric capturing exercise, according to him, was conducted by the state government in collaboration with the state chapter of Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, as well as a consultant, which led to the discovery of 9,000 ghost workers.

On the importance attached to education by his administration, Shema said: “Since inception, the administration has made education priority after realising that a lot of our children are out of school.

“Education is the number one item on the priority list of this administration. More than N40 billion had been committed to this sector in the past two years. The effect of this massive investment is in schools enrollment figure of the last five years.

“Whereas in 2004/2005 session only 142,729 students were in secondary school, the figure jumped to 1,045,141 in 2008/2009 session and 1,524,172 in the 2009/2010 session.

“Similarly, primary school enrollment, during the period, went up from 1,001,447 in 2005 to 1,278,418 in 2009.”