NMA Zamfara State chapter has reportedly confirmed the existence of 196 Ghost workers in medical practices bluebloodz.com has learned.
The serving Chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) Dr. Sanusi Bello in a phone conversation has said Governor Matawalle was right when he said only 84 out of 280 doctors working in the state are genuine while the remaining 196 are ghost doctors.
He said that the 196 ghost doctors were detected during a verification exercise conducted two months ago to ascertain the actual figure of doctors in the state before implementing the new minimum wage.
“To be frank, we have only 84 genuine doctors working in Zamfara State hospitals but unfortunately, there are 280 doctors on the payroll”
“This has indicated that the other 196 are actually ghost doctors and that is why the state government found it difficult to implement the minimum wage”
He placed the blame on the state Health Services Management Board for inserting the names of the ghost doctors in the payroll, advising the state government to look into the possibility of reshuffling the board.
Recall that Governor Matawalle in his country home, Maradun said he had paid the salaries of the genuine doctors contrary to speculation that his administration was withholding the salaries of health workers.
The Governor said the initial delay in the payment of the doctors’ salary was because of the verification exercise conducted by his administration in conjunction with the state union labor leaders.
“I summoned a meeting with the Head of Service and the labour union leaders where we discussed the issue of payment of salary to civil servants”
“A verification exercise was conducted where we discovered that 280 doctors have been collecting salaries from the state government while in reality, we have only 81 doctors”
The state Governor revealed that payment of November and December salaries was delayed on purpose to ascertain the actual number of civil servants in the state.