From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the National Working Committee (NWC), has declared war on ghost workers at the headquarters of the ruling party.
APC claimed that the action is part of its desperate attempt to reduce the humongous monthly wage bill on the salary schedule of the secretariat staff accruing to the ruling party.
To match words with action, the leadership, has equally subjected every secretariat staff to a fresh screening to ascertain their status with the party.
The APC transition committee had recommended an outright reduction of workforce at the party’s headquarters due to the whopping wage bill the Abdullahi Adamu-led leadership was confronted on assumption of office.
Although the leadership had concluded arrangements to implement the recommendations of the transition committee on the reduction of staff strength, it however paused, opting to first fish out ghost workers before taking final decision on the proposed sack of staff.
“It was the National Chairman that has been delaying the implementation the recommendations of the transition committee on the reduction of staff strength. The committee had reflected in its report to the national leadership that the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Committee over recruited personnel to the tune of over 100 new intakes,” a member of the party’s leadership told Daily Sun in confidence.
The source further explained that; “on assumption of office, our chairman had wanted to wield the big stick, but he delayed the execution to enable us carry out further investigations. It was on the course of the investigation that we noticed that many persons are in the payroll but not working with the party. Common sense requires that we start the cleansing and reduction from those ghost workers in the payroll.
“I am very sure that the staff must have told your people that we subjected them to fresh screening as part of the measures to match words with action. We ensured that all the secretariat staff have to undergo the process of filling credential forms issued to them to authenticate their status as secretariat staff. We need to sanitise the system,” our source quipped.