The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, says over 120 million naira was saved from salaries paid to ghost workers after the biometric verification of civil servants conducted recently by his administration.
In a state-wide broadcast on Thursday, Governor El-Rufai also announced a 60% reduction of overhead costs as part of measures by his administration to rescue the state from its precarious financial situation.
He stated that henceforth, the administration would adopt the zero-based budgeting system.
The Governor explained that the reason for cutting down the overhead cost to 60% was due to the state’s huge debt burden of over 74 billion naira, comprising 28.840 billion naira domestic and 45.44 billion naira foreign debts.
Since assumption of office on May 29, Governor El-Rufai had raised alarm over the poor state of the Kaduna State treasury, blaming the past Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration for the state’s financial problem.
The Governor also said that he was worried that the public service in the state had been eroded by indiscipline, corruption and impunity which had adversely affected the process of good governance and service delivery to the people and warned that the act must stop immediately.
Governor El-Rufai also explained that the biometric verification exercise was designed to provide the government, an accurate and reliable record of its personnel and enable the government determine if the billions of naira expended monthly on staff salary was being paid to identifiable and verifiable civil servants.
The Governor stressed that the reduction of ministries from 19 to 13 and the 50% salary cut for himself and his Deputy were also targeted at reducing the cost of governance.
He said that his government would no longer spend money to sponsor people for pilgrimages or buying gifts during festivities.
Governor El-Rufai also said that those involved in the ghost workers’ fraud would be prosecuted.
Critics have described some recent policies taken by the Governor as too harsh but the All Progressives Congress (APC) government says it is determined to introduce a number of measures towards ensuring that the current economic crisis in the country does not bite too much on the people of the state.
The government says it would explore all available means to improve the state’s Internally Generated Revenue and also block leakages in the state.
