Ghost workers are costing high to Tanzanian government, reveals the report of Controller and Auditor General (CAG).
Nineteen such public entities including National Assembly, Police Force, Judiciary, Fire and Rescue, and Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training have been identified to have paid salaries to 260 such employees who had been dismissed, retired, deceased or absconded.
The annual general report on the financial statement for the year ending 30 June 2015 reveals the total salaries to phantom workers amounted to 1,400,554,592.
However, some amount has been recovered from beneficiaries and by January 2017 it totalled to 158,350,788 only.
Professor Mussa Assad said the salaries paid contravened the Public Finance Regulation, 2001 (revised 2004) that requires Accounting Officers to maintain records of such persons who are working and payment should be made against the days for which he or she has worked.
The CAG report added, “Paying salaries to persons who are no longer in service is loss of public money … it is a serious problem that requires the government intervention to address.”
Prof. Assad said it is a systematic problem across several government entities and called on the Accounting Officers to ensure phantom workers pay back the money.
