1,500 workers who joined the Federal civil service with fake appointment letters in the past year have been uncovered by the federal government.
While over 1,000 culprits were discovered in one ministry, 500 others found in other ministries, departments and agencies during a service-wide verification exercise. They will now be delisted from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
This was disclosed by Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, in her keynote address at the ‘National Policy Dialogue on Entrenching Transparency in Public Office Recruitment in Nigeria,’ organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, in Abuja on Tuesday April 5.
Esan said;
“It would be recalled that in March last year, the office informed of the detection of fake letters of employment presented in some ministries. For instance, in the past year, in one ministry alone, over 1,000 individuals bearing fake letters of appointment were detected.
“In the light of the aforementioned, it is disheartening to point out that the office recently received a report from the Federal Civil Service Commission forwarding the names of over 500 persons in various MDAs in possession of fake letters of appointment and which are to be delisted from the IPPIS platform.
“Similarly, following the outcome of the Service-Wide Verification Exercise for officers recruited from 2013 – 2020, the Federal Civil Service Commission has also requested the suspension of the salaries of over 3,000 officers across the MDAs who failed to appear for the exercise pending further clearance.”
She further revealed that as at March 2022, over 380,000 officers had been captured on the IPPIS payroll comprising 66,000 and 320,000 for core and non-core MDAs, respectively.
Esan also disclosed that her office is carrying out a mop-up exercise in the core and non-core MDAs which would be rounded off in September.
Comparing the Federal civil service to the Indian civil service, the HoS stated that the Indian public service recruits only competent workers, while the Nigerian system is based on federal character principles and nepotism.