The Federal Government has confirmed that workers whose names are missing from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) will cease to earn salaries from the end of October.
No fewer than 89,100 workers on the federal payroll were yet to update their records as directed by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) as at October 3 while 780,000 had completed theirs.
In April 2017, OHCDF commenced online registration and physical verification of public servants with the aim of having their names enrolled on the IPPIS platform. The programme, which is meant to curb ghost workers syndrome and block leakages through personnel cost, ends tomorrow.
OHCSF Director of Communications M. A. Ahmed explained that with the expiration of the deadline, government had no choice than to delist all names not found on the IPPIS from its payroll.
Ahmed said: “The office carried out aggressive sensitization and publicity via the official, conventional and social media. An initial period of three (3) months was given for compliance, which was extended to one year, May 2018, to enable all officers to update their records. This was the first phase.
“Sequel to another wide publicity accompanied by numerous pre-verification sensitisation visits by IPPIS staff to ministries, extra-ministerial departments and agencies nationwide, the second phase of the exercise, the physical verification, commenced in 2018.
“In this regard, 500 staff from the OHCSF were trained and deployed, in well-communicated and coordinated phases, to the 36 states of the federation and the FCT(Federal Capital Territory) between 2018 and 2019 to enable officers to carry out the physical verification in their states and save them from travelling to Abuja.
“The OHCSF also conducted a two-week mop-up exercise in the six geo-political zones, which ended on August 1, 2019 to further enable those who missed the first exercise to be effectively captured.
“Teams of officials were also assigned to all unity colleges, in order not to disrupt academic activities. Another opportunity was provided between September 2022 and February 2023 for those who failed to verify their records in the previous exercises to do so.
“Having committed substantial financial and human resources over a period of seven years to verify the records of all civil servants on the IPPIS platform, our office was left with no option than to suspend the salaries of those who failed to participate in the exercise with effect from September 2023.
“Consequent upon this, some of the erring officers besieged the OHCSF with pleas to be given the last opportunity to comply. The portal was, therefore, reopened on October 3 to 13, 2023 to enable them to update their records.
“The officers were then asked to come to Abuja for the physical verification exercise as the office had already committed and exhausted the budgeted funds and was unable to further deploy staff to the states for the exercise.”
The OHCSF spokesman also reacted to the claims by some workers that they encountered difficulties during the verification in the FCT.
He explained that in spite of the fact that officers were disorderly in the first two days of the exercise, the OHCSF still granted a two-week grace that will end tomorrow.
Ahmed said: “It should be noted that the aforementioned officers are the architects of their inconvenience for not being compliant with official directives.
“However, the verification of records of all civil servants will be finalised at the end of the ongoing exercise and any officer whose record could not be verified will be delisted from the payroll of government.”
