Bello Matawalle, governor of Zamfara, disclosed that most of the medical doctors in the state are ghost workers discovered on the payroll of the state government.

Matawalle revealed this during a chat with journalists in Maradun town, Maradun LGA of the state. The governor said the ghost workers were discovered during the recent workers’ verification exercise for the implementation of the N30,0000 new national minimum wage.

“We discovered that in a payroll, we have 280 medical doctors receiving salary monthly, but only 81 were genuine doctors while all the remaining 199 were ghost workers,” he said. “This was among the major challenges that affected the full implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage for the workers in the state which commenced in Nov. 2022 under my administration. “We are working with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other stakeholders to address the problem.”

Matawalle said his administration was ready to ensure the smooth payment of workers’ salaries as well as the general improvement of workers’ welfare. “As I am speaking to you, I built 450 houses for the civil servants in the state and I will hand over the houses to the workers very soon,” he said. The governor maintained that the state government was not owing civil servants salaries. “I have paid all salaries of government workers in the state for the months of November and December 2022,” he added. He noted that there were some challenges in the payment of the salaries due to the discoveries made during the verification exercise.