The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has identified over 22,074 suspicious individuals on the Federal Government’s payroll.
These personnel were found across various Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs), and tertiary institutions, with the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) being the most implicated.
The estimated financial impact of these 12,174 personnel is about N34.8 billion. Last year, despite the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the government disbursed N37.1 billion to these suspicious employees.
The ICPC’s report, part of an anti-corruption review initiated by President Bola Tinubu’s administration, revealed discrepancies including 12,714 personnel on the payroll who were not on the service-wide nominal roll from January to December of last year.
The IPPIS has been found to be tampered with, manipulated, and padded with ghost workers or suspicious individuals. Approximately 4,190 former police officers were identified on the IPPIS payroll.
Fraudulent activities observed include double salary payments, fictitious names, fake identities for embezzlement, dual IPPIS accounts, and ghost workers. Among 95 personnel with discrepancies, eight share the same surname, and one individual is linked to two IPPIS accounts. Additionally, 24 workers across 20 MDAs were found receiving double salaries from multiple sources.
At the Ministry of Works, 212 officers listed on the IPPIS payroll, with a combined monthly salary of N31.99 million, were absent from both the ministry’s nominal roll and the service-wide nominal roll.
The commission said: “The general overview of the Nominal Roll and Payroll of MDAs furnished by IPPIS and subjected to an analysis established a quantum disparity of 12, 174 personnel between the two parameters (nominal roll and payroll) used in the analysis
“The said 12,174 personnel were visibly on the payroll but not on the service wide nominal roll between January and December 2023.
“The monetary value of the 12, 174 personnel is put at N34,808,740,634.37within the period under review. Included in the service wide disparity between the payroll and the nominal roll were the specific discoveries made from some MDAs used as a pilot scheme.”
“But the fraud was allegedly more entrenched in the Nigeria Police Force with thousands of ex-employees on the payroll.”
The report added: “The analysis of NPF payroll focused on December 2023 nominal and payroll obtained from IPPIS for the purpose of comparison. The nominal and payroll have populated names of 350,028 and 312,047 respectively.
“It was discovered on the nominal roll that 37, 160 staff were described as “ex-employees. However, on the same nominal roll spreadsheet, 37,129 were described as “inactive” whilst the balance of 31 staff were also categorized as having “Active” status
“Furthermore, 4,190 staff of NPF, described as “ex-employees” were found on the payroll of IPPIS to have received December 2023 salary amounting to N980,273,690.51.
“It was discovered that 3, 228 of the 4, 190 have their records consistent in all parameters used for validation on the payroll such as the names, IPPIS numbers and account numbers.
“Conversely, the account numbers of the remainder 962 staff were compared with that on the payroll and the findings revealed that the names of staff and bank names were inconsistent.”
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