The Kano State Government has uncovered irregularities in its payroll, including 240 employees receiving double salaries and 217 individuals sharing the same Bank Verification Number (BVN).
Dr Sulaiman Sani, Special Adviser to the Governor on Civil Service Matters and Chairman of the State Coordinating Committee, revealed this during a press briefing in Kano on Sunday.
Representing the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Umar Ibrahim, Sani said the anomalies emerged from a biometric verification exercise aimed at sanitising the civil service.
“The inherited shortcomings in the payroll system have continued to disturb the government. We discovered that 240 employees are drawing double salaries, while 217 individuals share BVNs,” he said.
Sani also disclosed that 1,335 employees had failed to present themselves for verification over the past six months, raising further questions about the authenticity of many names on the payroll.
Meanwhile, Alhaji Umar Idi, Chairman of the Local Government Payroll Standing Committee, said an audit uncovered 247 questionable names on local government and primary healthcare payrolls. Only eight of these individuals came forward to validate their employment status.
“The removal of the remaining 239 names has resulted in a monthly saving of N27.8 million, which has been returned to the state and local governments’ joint account,” Idi said.
Sani stressed that the ongoing verification exercise was not punitive but aimed at ensuring genuine workers and pensioners received their full entitlements without arbitrary deductions.
He noted that since assuming office, Governor Abba Yusuf’s administration had prioritised prompt salary payments and eliminated informal deductions from workers’ wages.
“Payroll cleansing will enhance transparency and efficiency in salary administration,” Sani said, pledging that the government would continue working with stakeholders to restore credibility to the civil service.
