The Oyo State Government has uncovered 41 ghost civil/public servants who are to be deleted from the state’s payroll.

In a statement released on Wednesday by the Press Secretary to the state Governor, Taiwo Adisa, the Implementation Committee of the Oyo state 2019/2020 Civil/Public Servants Audit and Payroll Re-Engineering/Validation Exercise had recommended the removal of 41 officers, who were classified as “no show”, from the government’s payroll.

The recommendations of the committee were based on a report by Messrs Sally Tilbot Consulting firm which was engaged by the Oyo State government in 2019 to carry out an audit into its employees and pensioners payroll.

It was revealed that Tilbot indicted 602 workers for irregularities, and recommended them for sanctions by the government.

However, it was observed by the 13-member implementation committee headed by Permanent Secretary of the Civil Service Commission, D.O Olatunde, that 341 workers with irregular records out of the 602 had opted for voluntary retirement while 170 had systematically retired “due to no particular influence of the screening exercise”.

Forty officers were also cleared and absolved of any offence, while 10 officers on the list were found out to be dead.

In final recommendations of the committee it was advised that “40 officers should be absolved and allowed to remain on government payrolls, 170 officers who had retired systematically should be allowed on pension payrolls, and 10 deceased officers should be paid their due entitlements.”

The committee also recommended that 341 officers who had opted for voluntary retirement should be allowed to do so while the 41 ghost workers should be removed from government’s payroll immediately and “an administrative investigation should be undertaken by the government to determine where the salaries of the ‘No show’ officers had been going.”