D13.5 Million Saved Monthly After Payments to “Ghost Workers” Stopped Temporarily

Minister Boye responding to questions © Askanwi

By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT

Last year, the Ministry of Public Service’s Personnel Management Office (PMO) announced that it detected some 2,142 “ghost workers” in the civil service, as reported by Standard Newspaper. This was according to preliminary findings from a staff audit at the ministries of basic and secondary education, health, and agriculture.

In a recent Mansakunda Town Hall engagement featuring the Minister of Public Service, Hon. Baboucarr Boye responded to a question from Askanwi and revealed that “we were saving about D13.5 million a month by removing those people from the payroll, but as I said, some of them appeared, and their pay will be reinstated.”

However, Hon. Boye does not consider the term “ghost workers” appropriate. In his view, “the idea of calling them ‘ghosts' if [PMO] has not established whether they are there or not, I don’t think is very safe. You can only categorise them as ghosts if indeed they don’t exist.”

Given that PMO revealed back in 2024 that 2,142 missing workers were established from only three ministries, our reporter asked how many missing workers existed in the remaining ministries. In response, Minister Boye highlighted that “as we speak from the remaining ministries, we have also established that 2,700 were not seen.”

After the staff audit, salaries for missing workers were stopped, but some of them later on resurfaced and provided clarifications for their absence. According to Hon. Boye, “After the stoppage of these salaries, some of those whose salaries were stopped surfaced, and they were in the wrong place, but they came back with authentic documents. As we know, some people were at the university studying; some were not at their place of posting when the exercise was conducted. They came with documents, and they were verified and *removed.”

PMO PS Lamin Darboe © Askanwi

Currently, it appears that a manual process is required to detect missing workers, which is preceded by a staff audit, but an automated system is in the works to ensure that this is done automatically.

It was established that an automatic attendance register is being trialled currently. This automatic system should be linked to the payroll system and automatically detect missing workers.

PMO Permanent Secretary Lamin Darboe explained that “the reform initiative that we are pursuing, the idea is that the electronic attendance register machines, when they are linked to the payroll,” and “once the machines are linked to the payroll, anybody who fails to clock for 20 working days, your salaries will be automatically removed by the system, and in trying to do that, the person will be investigated as to why they were not reporting to work, and if it is not based on genuine reasons, [their] service will be terminated.”

Our reporter urged the minister to provide a target for when this will be done, and Hon. Boye responded by saying, “We are working with the accountant general’s office, and there is a system that we don’t own completely as a country. This system has been there since 2007.”

“That is what has helped us to even manage our payroll to be able to prepare the government’s accounts for it to be audited. But we are targeting that everything being equal by the end of the year this year [2025], we should be able to get to that,” said Minister Boye.

Minister of Public Service, Hon. Baboucarr Boye © Askanwi

It is planned that this will apply to all areas of government, including independent institutions and local government. PMO PS Lamin Darboe explained that “we are a ministry of public service, and we are not focused on the civil service alone. We are going to set the standard that all the independent institutions are going to follow.”

He concluded by saying, “We are going to digitise the payroll system so that when someone is not clocking, it will be detected digitally, and it will send an alarm for the person to be shut out from the system.”

It is anticipated that by the end of 2025, this system will be in place.

According to its website, the Ministry of Public Service exists to coordinate and oversee the development, management, and administration of government policies, management systems, and procedures for responsive public service delivery. Its vision is to transform, modernise, and efficiently create a results-orientated public service that is responsive to national development goals and objectives. In this regard, its mission is to develop, manage, and administer human resource policies, management systems, structures, and procedures for responsive public service delivery.

Source 2025 to 2022 Budgets: Figures in thousands of Dalasis © Askanwi

During the 2025 Budget Speech, Finance Minister Hon. Seedy Keita revealed that “the projected increase in Personnel Emolument expenditures from the approved figure of D7.4 billion for 2024 to D8.8 billion in 2025 is largely driven by the projected D1.4 billion impact from the proposed increase in salaries and the increase of transport and residential allowances.”

Our budget research has revealed that over three years (2021 to 2023), the government overspent once on “compensation of employee,” which includes wages, salaries, and social contributions. This overspend of over D751 million occurred in 2023, while 2021 and 2022 featured a total underspend of D299.64 million.