The Abia State Government said it has saved more than N300 million, nearly three months after it started the process of eliminating ghost workers from its civil service.  

According to the Special Adviser on Economic Affairs to the State Governor, Mr Obinna Oriaku, the Integrated Payroll Verification process embarked upon by the state was yielding positive results.

“In the month of May government was able to save N160 million from ghost workers. The summary of the State savings for both the month of May and June in salary payment stands at over N300 million," he was quoted to have explained in a statement.

In terms of salary payment in the state, Oriaku said: “We have paid all for the three months we are in charge while the bailout fund will be used to offset arrears."

According to him, “We had arrears before we came in. We started from when we came in which was May, June and July. We took over on May 29th.  The bailout fund will be used to take out all outstanding salaries and pension that we met on ground.”

“Please note that civil servants now take it for granted that they all will be paid at the end of every month… All the institutions in the state are back to work,” he said

Recently, health workers in the State, under the aegis of Joint Union of Health Workers (JOHESU), protesting unpaid salary arrears, suspended their five-month-old strike, following a meeting of the sate leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and the State Governor, who assured them that he would soon pay them their arrears.