Nsukka Local Government Council in Enugu State has admitted losing N20 million monthly to ghost primary school teachers.
Mr. Tony Ugwu, chairman of the council, disclosed this at a briefing, saying that although the council discovered the ungodly racket recently, everything was being done to nip the development in the bud.
Ugwu noted that the scam, which had been in the system of the council for long, had bloated the number of primary school teachers in the local government area.
According to him, this prompted the council to spend over N80 million on wages of primary school teachers at the detriment of capital projects.
Ugwu said: “We have recorded reasonable progress in our efforts to combat the unfortunate syndrome before the tenure of this administration elapses by December this year so that the next administration would not suffer what we suffered”.
“Fighting the endemic fraud, the Council has reduced the wage bill of primary school teachers in the area to N70 million as a result of the machinery put in place to fight the cankerworm that had eaten deep into the fabrics of the council”.
Ugwu noted that the council would not relent until the ghost workers in the primary school system in the area were flushed out.
He added that the council would no longer tolerate a situation where people would be in another employment and still earn salary as primary school teacher in the local government area.
Ugwu also said despite the shortfall in revenue occasioned by ghost primary school teachers scam, the council was able to augment through internally generated revenue, IGR, which had risen to N20 million annually against the N2 million by past administration of the council.
He said almost all the major projects executed by his administration were revenue driven, saying “we will not leave any project we embarked upon uncompleted.”
He said: “Before we leave office, we would account to the stakeholders and the entire people of the area how we used the revenue accruing from the federation account to the council and internally generated revenue.”
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