ICPC To Fish Out Ghost Workers In MDAs- E-Payment:

The Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Mr.Ekpo Nta has said that the ICPC has started a check on e-governance system’s mode of salary payment in order to uncover sharp practices in payroll and fish out ghost workers in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. Nta disclosed this on Issues Of The Moment, an NTA International interview programme monitored in Abuja.

He disclosed that operatives of ICPC were already in the fields visiting various banks to check whether the “person whose name is on the nominal roll and on the payroll in a particular ministry, is the same person who is receiving it in the bank”.

The chairman said the ICPC operatives are currently carrying out authentication of what is on nominal roll and that of payroll in some banks. He said these checks were necessary because of the e-governance system of paying salaries had removed so many bottlenecks, as cashiers “now pay directly to the banks”

Nta said: “you had a whole lot of people involved up to the cashier to move money, but now the system has removed those elements of man to man contact.”

He said these checks by ICPC operatives were working well and called on the members of the public to avail themselves the opportunity by contacting ICPC promptly.

He agreed that there should be a lot more of communication literacy to fully establish ways of reporting, adding that the ICPC had fully got involved in public enlightenment and that, one of the ways was to contact him through his e-mail address: ekponta@icpc.gov.ng, promising that requests would be handled with dispatch.

Nta said he had started clearing the perception that one need to physically report infractions to the commission as this had slowed down ICPC activities. “I want to use this opportunity to state that the moment you have any credible issue to send to us, go ahead and do it as we have a much more responsive system now,” he said.