Certificate racketeering: Six directors sacked following discovery of 210 ghost workers

The Anambra State Local Government Service Commission has sacked six Deputy Directors who have fake certificates.

The Chairman of the commission, Vincent Ezeaka, who disclosed the development in Awka on Saturday, also said that the commission uncovered 210 suspected ghost workers in the system.

He said: “The affected directors were alleged products of Imo State University, and as I speak, our investigators are expecting more responses from other universities across the country.

“The action is part of the commission’s quest to enthrone professionalism and eradicate all forms of corruption in the council system.

“As for the ghost workers, who cut across the 21 local government areas of the state, we have removed them from the workers’ payroll.”

Ezeaka said the discoveries were made possible through a dedicated back-to-back personnel audit and the deployment of staff biometrics identification and verification, using a state-of-the-art clock-in-clock-out digital attendance register.

Speaking further, Ezeaka said the exercise brought to the fore the numerical strength of the physical staff in the Unified Local Government System of Anambra State, adding that certificate screening had become a continuous exercise.

He said that having completed the screening of Grade Levels 15 and 16, the certificate screening of Grade Level 14 and below shall commence in earnest, explaining that it was all aimed at flushing out fraudsters and all forms of certificate racketeering in the local government system.

Ezeaka lamented what he called the unrestrained looting and mismanagement of local government funds, which, he added, had become a thing of the past since all local government accounts had been linked to a dedicated tracking system, continuously monitored by security agents for the recovery of looted funds and prosecution of culpable officers.

He commended Governor Chukwuma Soludo for supporting a digitally smart local government system that birthed the clock-in-clock-out electronic attendance register.