The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a comprehensive forensic audit of the Federal Government’s payroll, accounting and administrative systems to uncover ghost workers, fictitious agencies and other weaknesses that could expose public funds to fraud.
The decision followed concerns over the estimated N9.5 trillion committed to incremental salaries and allowances, with the government seeking to establish whether existing personnel and payment systems contain irregularities that could be contributing to financial leakages.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing journalists after the FEC meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Oyedele said the review would include a thorough examination of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), with particular attention to identifying ghost workers, falsified personnel records and other payroll-related abuses.
He explained that the exercise was intended to ensure that government salaries and allowances reached only genuine public servants and to strengthen controls around personnel expenditure.
The minister said the government’s wage bill had become a major area of fiscal scrutiny because of the substantial resources allocated to salaries and allowances. He added that removing fraudulent entries and strengthening payroll controls would help reduce waste and improve the management of public finances.
The Council also examined a separate security and administrative breach involving the alleged creation of fictitious government agencies.
According to Oyedele, an unauthorised group was able to establish a fraudulent government entity and obtain official administrative and Treasury Single Account (TSA) codes. Although the entity did not receive government funds, the minister described the incident as a serious weakness in the government’s systems.
He said the matter was uncovered through an investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), whose findings were presented to President Tinubu.
The investigation, he added, revealed that the problem extended beyond an alleged presidential welfare initiative, with a fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and other fictitious entities identified.
Following the findings, Tinubu directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, in conjunction with the Finance Ministry, to engage professional audit firms to conduct a forensic review of the affected government systems.
Oyedele said the audit would determine how unauthorised entities obtained official government codes, identify weaknesses in existing controls and recommend measures to prevent similar breaches.
“The objective is to identify existing lapses, plug vulnerabilities and prevent future occurrences of such national embarrassments by strengthening oversight across all governmental institutions,” he said.
The minister stressed that the ability of fictitious entities to obtain official administrative and TSA codes, even without accessing public funds, demonstrated the seriousness of the vulnerabilities within government processes.
He said the forensic exercise would therefore not be limited to the entities already uncovered but would examine the wider administrative, accounting and financial systems that allowed the breach to occur.
Oyedele also acknowledged concerns that some of the weaknesses may have predated the current administration.
“There is a concern that these systemic vulnerabilities may have existed for longer than the current administration’s tenure,” he said.
He maintained, however, that the audit would provide an objective assessment of the extent of the problems and guide the government in taking appropriate corrective action.
The exercise is expected to complement ongoing efforts to clean up the Federal Government’s payroll, strengthen financial accountability and ensure that only legitimate personnel and duly established government institutions can access official administrative and financial platforms.
Oyedele said the broader objective was to protect public resources, improve expenditure efficiency and prevent funds intended for genuine government workers and essential public services from being lost through fraudulent payroll and administrative practices.
