Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Bello Mohammed Matawalle has said that his administration has found 199 ghost doctors on the payroll of the state government.
He said the state government was paying salaries for “280 doctors but there are 81 medical doctors” in the state in reality.
In a chat with newsmen at his residence in Maradun town, the headquarters of Maradun Local Government Area, Matawalle said that the situation made it difficult to pay their monthly salary.
He said that he had met with the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress and other stakeholders on how to trace those 199 ghost doctors who spent a long time collecting salary illegally with a view to correcting the anomaly.
“The stakeholders confirmed to me that the motive behind the delay in the payment of salary to health workers was the fact that they wanted to ensure that things go right and we are going to address all the lacuna in the health sector very soon.
“I have paid both November and December salaries to all the health workers but unfortunately we discovered discrepancies in the way the salaries are being paid”, Matawalle said.
He explained that the discovery of the ghost doctors was a result of the ongoing data capturing of all the state workforce through the office of the state Head of Service as part of the state government’s readiness to commence proper implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage to the state workforce.
