PMO: Over 2,000 “Ghost” Workers Detected in 2024 Audit

Minister Boye responding to questions © Askanwi

By the Personnel Management Office, The Ministry of Public Service, Administrative Reform, Policy Coordination and Delivery

The Ministry of Public Service, Administrative Reform, Policy Coordination & Delivery, through the Personnel Management Office, carried out two phases of Staff Audit in Fiscal Year 2024. The first phase covered the Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education, Health and Agriculture, Livestock & Food Security. The report of this staff audit has now been finalised and has resulted in the stoppage of salaries of over 1424 public servants who could not be seen. Consequently, banks and other financial institutions where their salaries were being paid have been contacted to recover the wrongful salaries paid to these absentee Government employees. While the recovery process is underway, a list of the said unseen staff has been submitted to the Public Service Commission to summarily dismiss them and declare their positions vacant in accordance with Public Service Commission Regulations 57.

The second phase of the 2024 staff audit was conducted in the month of December. This phase covered the rest of the Civil Service, including the Armed and Security Forces. At the initial conclusion of this audit, 679 public servants could not be physically identified. Consequently, their salaries will be stopped for the month of April, 2025 to wait for any genuine reactions from the affected staff, before finalising on the list of unseen staff for wrongful salary recovery and dismissal from the service of The Gambia Government.

Both phases of staff audit were conducted together with pensioners’ audit, with a view to cleaning up of Government pensioners’ database of deceased beneficiaries.

The Ministry of Public Service, Administrative Reform, Policy Coordination & Delivery is in the process of putting in place robust systems and processes by leveraging on ICT to minimise the incidence of names of absentee workers persisting on Government payroll for both active employees and pensioners. These exercises are saving Government millions of dalasis on account of wrongful salary and pension payments.