Govt saves K78m in ‘ghost’ salaries

By KETRA KALUNGAGOVERNMENT has saved about K78 million after cleaning up the payroll in four provinces with the aim of blocking ghost workers drawing salaries on the civil service payroll.Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet – E-government, Martine Mtonga, said the payroll verification exercise was conducted in Northern, East-ern and North-Western provinces.Dr Mtonga said a good number of ghost workers had been removed from the payroll by the Accountant General’s office and would never come back.Speaking on ZNBC Sunday Interview television programme, he indicated that the rural districts of the Copperbelt – Lufwanyama, Mpongwe and Masaiti – had more ghost workers followed by Northern Province.“Copperbelt had more discrepancies, the rural districts had more discrepancies followed by Northern Province. We had more problems in the Ministry of General Education and Health, most of the workers were not in their rural districts,” he said.He said the exercise recorded more figures bias towards the deceased and retired civil servants who were still drawing salaries.Public workers who had resigned were also drawing salaries.