No fewer than 23, 846 ghost workers have been removed from the Federal government’s payroll, saving the government N2.293 billion from the total salary bill for the ministries, departments and agencies MDAs for February 2016. According to the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who disclosed this over the weekend, Bank Verification Exercise and enrolment to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) exposed ghost workers that have hitherto been collecting salaries in various MDAs.

The BVN is a unique number that identifies each bank’s customer for “Know Your Customer” (KYC) purposes. The use of BVNs, rather than physical appearance of workers for biometric capture at the initial stage of verification, has significantly simplified and accelerated the progress of the payroll audit process and reduced the cost of implementation.