Lakes State retrieves SSP7m accidentally paid to ‘ghost workers’

The government of Lakes State on Friday revealed that it managed to recover over SSP 7 million spent on salaries of ghost workers.

This came after Governor Rin Tueny Mabor formed a committee to review and clear repeated or ghost names on pay sheets of the government institutions in the state.

According to the State Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, who also serves as the acting Minister of Information, William Koji Kerijok, 378 names of civil servants from the three defunct states of Gok, Western, and Eastern were missing from the government payroll, and the governor directed for their salaries to be paid.

“Today, the  Council of Ministers was actually [able] to review the work of the committee which has been tasked with the payment of August salary,” he said.

“The governor of Lake’s State came up with a programme that needs the manpower of the state to be screened so that the payment for August has to be paid by the committee. The committee has done it, and they had to bring the report to the Council of Ministers. “

In late 2015, President Salva Kiir created an additional 18 new states on top of 10 existing ones, bringing the total number of states in the country to 28.

Kiir further divided the 28 states he created in 2015 into 32 states in 2017, saying that his ruling party, the SPLM, was implementing the party’s slogan of taking the towns to the people.

However, in February 2020, the President reverted to 10 states following the agreement he signed in September 2018 with the opposition political parties who were fighting the government.

After reverting the country to 10 states, all the defunct states created in 2015 and 2017 were reintegrated back into the 10 states to create the pathway for the implementation of the agreement.

The country’s return to 10 states per the agreement, all defunct states created between 2015 and 2017 were reintegrated into the 10 states to pave the ground for the agreement’s execution.