Phantom workers ‘eat’ 1.4bn/- from state coffers

ABDALLAH MSUYA in Dodoma

SALARIES to ghost workers cost the government 1.4bn/- in the 2015/16 fiscal year, the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report has revealed.

The amount, the CAG, Professor Mussa Assad, said here yesterday, was spent by 19 public entities to pay salaries to 260 ghost employees.

The annual general report on the financial statement for the year ending June 30, 2015, said a sample of 19 entities from ministries and regional secretariats showed that salaries amounting to 1,400,554,592/- were paid to phantom workers.

“The salaries were paid to 260 employees who had absconded, deceased, retired or dismissed,” revealed Prof Assad, noting that the salaries were for a period ranging from one to 72 months. He said the payments contravened the Public Finance Regulation, 2001 (revised 2004) which requires Accounting Officers to maintain staff records to ensure persons are paid only for the days worked. Prof Assad said out of the amount paid to ghost employees, only 158,350,788 was recovered as of January, this year.

“Paying salaries to persons who are no longer in service is loss of public money ... it is a serious problem that requires the government intervention to address,” the CAG remarked, adding that compared to the previous year, there was an increase from 392,651,036/- to 1.4bn/.

“This is a systematic problem across the government entities.” Prof Assad called on Accounting Officers to ensure the amounts paid to ghost workers are refunded by the respective beneficiaries to the Ministry of Finance and Planning. “In addition, Accounting Officers should timely remove from the payroll all non-existing employees to avoid financial loss to the government,” the CAG insisted.

He named the entities with their respective number of non-existing staff and amount paid in brackets as National Assembly (two staff; 2,536,000/-), Fire and Rescue (four staff; 2,818,000/-), Police Force (139 staff; 757,316,000/, recovered 14,034,700/- ) , Judiciary (27 staff; 182,913,133.26/, recovered 35,031, 519.66/- ), Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training (eight staff; 62,541, 948/-), Ministry of Lands, Housing and Settlements (one staff; 22,623,980, recovered 10,058, 338/-).

Others are Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elders and Children (eight staff; 18,508,632.50/-), Ministry of Works, Transport and

Communication (four staff; 5,382,958/-, recovered 4,459,232/-), Water and Irrigation (26 staff; 63,324, 829.40/-, recovered 47,040,101.40/-).

Also in the list is Kagera regional secretariat (eight staff; 12,196,493.29/-, recovered 6,784,200/-), Shinyanga regional secretariat (one staff; 43,932,185, recovered 22,250,000/-), Geita regional secretariat (fourstaff; 26,604,200/-, recovered 17,360,000/-), Kigoma regional secretariat (12,150,573,228/- ), Rukwa Region (six staff; 2,756,903/-) and Ruvuma regional secretariat (four staff; 15,857,080/-).

Others are Tanga Regional Secretariat (three staff; 3,017,687.23/-, recovered 1,332,697/-), Registrar of Political Parties (one staff; 22,442,888.80/-), Manyara regional secretariat (one staff; 1,568,445.38) and Mtwara regional secretariat (one staff; 3,640,000/-).