6,000 ghost, redundant workers on NIMC payroll – DG

Director-General, National Identity Management Commission, Chris Onyemenam
| credits: leadership.ng

More than 50 per cent or over 6,000 workers who are receiving payments from the National Identity Management Commission are either ghost or redundant workers, the Director-General of the agency, Mr. Chris Onyemenam, has said.

Onyemenam, who said this at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday in reaction to Wednesday’s protest by some ex-workers against their disengagement, also disclosed that the agency had spent N940m on the terminal benefits of more than 3,000 workers who were disengaged from the employment of the organisation in August.

The NIMC boss also said over 75 per cent of identity documents in use in the country was fake, adding that more than 100 million Nigerians did not have any form of official identification document.

He disclosed that majority of the over 10,000 workers that NIMC inherited at creation in 2007 from the defunct Department of National Civic Registration were ghost workers, some of whom had employment in other organisations, while collecting salaries from NIMC.

According to him, while more than 3,000 ghost workers were eliminated in 2008, the organisation continued to bear the brunt of paying for another 3,000 ghost and redundant workers until August when they were asked to go.

He said, “The nominal roll of the defunct DNCR had over 10,000 members of staff, most of who were in the junior staff category. There was also a correspondingly high number of executive cadre staff. Most of the workers have been idle since the massive card production exercise under the SAGEM card issuance scheme that ended in December 2006.

“Management took certain decisions to address these immediate challenges; first was to ascertain the nominal roll of over 10,200 people. At the end of the exercise, we could not account for over 3,000 members of staff inherited from DNCR.”

Onyemenam said even after the verification, the number of employees was still unwieldy with a number of workers outside the headquarters having either gone to school without permission or had taken other jobs.

He said, “Following successful consultations with unions, management formally declared a redundancy and subsequently followed laid down procedures in conducting the redundancy exercise, including negotiation sessions with representatives of the unions inherited from the defunct DNCR.

“The disengagement cost of N940m was part of the three-year funding arrangement in the sum of N30.06bn approved for the NIMC by the Federal Executive Council on September 28, 2011. The full amount was provided in the 2012 fiscal year and has been utilised to pay all entitlements.”

Onyemenam said following successful negotiations with the unions and in compliance with the NIMC Act, the governing board considered and approved the implementation of the redundancy exercise that saw to the sacking of additional 3,025 workers.

According to him, all the affected workers had been paid their entitlements and have no reason to press to be reabsorbed.

He added that the some of the affected workers had moral questions that the NIMC could not trust them with the process of identity management, which demanded integrity.