Mwanza uncovers more ghost workers

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS, 25 JUNE 2016.

MWANZA Region, in its second verification exercise on ghost workers, has discovered a total of 1,057 more such workers who did not show up during the verification process which was held from April 18 to June 3, this year.

In the first phase of the verification exercise the region led nationwide by having a total of 334 ghost workers. Mwanza Regional Commissioner (RC), Mr John Mongela, said this here yesterday when he was speaking to both the regional Secretariat and District Council civil servants.

“In order to implement President John Magufuli’s order of removing ghost workers from all payrolls, I created two teams which were led by Assistant Administrative Secretaries. “The effort also involved senior officials from my office,” he explained.

He said the teams discovered 28,068 workers who were paid salaries in February, this year, in both the regional secretariat and council. A total of 27,416 are from councils and 652 from the regional secretariat.

“The council’s workers who showed up during the verification exercise totalled 26,359 and those who did not attend were 1,057.

These are the ones whom we consider to be ghost workers,” he said. He said the region had made a detailed physical analysis of employees who did not come during the verification exercise at the council level and found that 367 out of 1,057 workers who did not attend were paid a total of 2,162, 730, 686/-.

He said among those workers 214 were absent during the same period of verification and did not work. But they were paid salaries amounting to 1,597,479, 435/- . “The teams also found out that there were 74 workers who were retired but were paid 226,677,112/-.

Some civil servants had resigned but were paid 54,383, 254/-,” he said. He added: “But the teams also found the presence of three workers who were fired. Two of them had their salary payments missing but one was paid 332,100/-.”

He said, however, that the team found the existence of two public servants who contested in the 2015 general elections were paid a total amount of 12,102, 000/-.

“But the saddest scenario involved the existence of 33 deceased servants who were paid 64,515,879/-. Now I do not know if the money (salaries) has followed them into their graves,” he quipped.

He also said that the verification exercise of ghost workers has revealed the presence of 31 public servants who were not known to their employers but were paid salaries. “This is funny, how possible is it for an employer to pay a salary to an unknown worker?

For example, in Ukerewe District Council there are public servants who are in the payroll but are not known to their employer,” he said.

He added that the region has revealed a total of 689 civil servants who did not attend the verification exercise, but they deserve to be paid their salaries due to various reasons.

He said 416 servants were transferred to other work stations, 29 were in studies, 18 were sick, 18 others were not having specific reasons and five were on vacation. In the regional secretariat, he said, 35 workers were assessed.

One had died but his bank account had received a total of 3,980,000/-. He said one servant was dismissed, but his account got a total of 3,617,820/- and one worker who resigned had 3,556,860/- deposited in his bank account.