Rukwa unearths ghost students

PETI SIYAME in Sumbawanga

Rukwa Regional Commissioner , Mr Zelothe Steven

RUKWA Region has identified 2,408 students from public primary and secondary schools as ghost students following the recent verifications.

The Rukwa Region Commissioner (RC), Mr Zelothe Steven, briefed the Prime Minister , Mr Kassim Majaliwa, when reading before him, the regional development reports in Namanyere Town , Nkasi District.

The premier was further told that Rukwa Region continued to put into action the directives of President John Magufuli by undertaking thorough verification of phantom students in all public primary and secondary schools in the region.

Expounding, the RC told the premier that among the ghost students, 2,021 were uncovered in public primary schools while 387 are from secondary schools in the region .

In the same vein the RC said that until July this year the region has received 2,600, 191,000/- being capitation for primary and secondary schools in a bid to strengthen free education program.

Mr Zelothe said that 1,063,658,000/- were given to public primary schools while 1,536,533,000/- went to secondary schools in Kalambo , Nkasi , Sumbawanga District Councils and Sumbawanga Municipal Council .

The premier said the government has allocated over 18bn/- being a capitation fund given to schools. He called on the school heads to be vigilant .

Meanwhile, Rukwa government with support from the relevant state organs has recovered 267,433, 597/- being salaries paid to ghost workers out of 3,669,404,280/- Similarly , about 533 civil servants from the region were allowed to undergo further studies in 71 colleges in the country.

However the verification exercise shows that most of them are absentees or absconders. Such eye-opener was in the region development reports presented by Mr Zelothe to the premier.

The reports had it that the region had formed a team to carry out verification over the salaries paid to ghost workers from July 2013 to May, 2016 of which 647 phantom workers were uncovered after being paid 3,669,280-- as their salaries.

“About 492 phantom workers out of 647 being equivalent to 76 per cent were removed from the pay roll that was before verification exercises of ghost workers that was carried out in march 2016 and they were paid 2,276,643,000/- which is equivalent to 62 per cent of the amount of salaries paid to ghost workers “ read part of the report.

The reports further recounted that about 155 nonexistent workers out of 467 have been removed after the presidential directive of which the authentication was carried out on May 2016 and they were paid salaries amounting to 1,392,760,660 000/-

“In the meantime the region is carrying out verification in 71 colleges countrywide in a bid to make a confirmation over the existence of phantom workers who are studying in those colleges.

Currently several investigative and legal actions are taken for the suspects for allegedly facilitating the existence of ghost workers” added the report.