Tuesday 24 February 2015

FCFA 5 Billion Economised After Identifying Fake State Employees


The previous exercise saw the names of 13,000 fake State personnel deleted from the payroll.
FCFA 50 billion is the amount reduced from government’s payroll following stringent measures taken after the 2006 headcount of active State workers and retirees to clean up the file of ghost workers. The exercise identified over 13,000 fake State employees, unduly siphoning money into their pockets. The Unit Head for sanitising the State payroll in the Ministry of Finance, Mohamadou Ousman, observed that among those who’s salaries were suspended were those unjustifiably away from active service and category of retirees and others as of right.
The success story of 2006 has prompted another action. It is against this framework that the Ministry of finance is launching on February 25, 2015 an exercise to identify all State pensioners and next-of-kins of deceased State workers.

Mohamadou Ousman stressed it was imperative to list the details of the concerned in terms of unpaid wages and irregularities. Mechanisms have been put in place to detect malpractices that will come therein with the exercise. Beneficiaries of invalidity pensions and those receiving undue monies will have their vouchers suspended as well as survivors of deceased public officials of reversionary and temporary orphans’ pensions. Next-of-kin about 21 years will have their dues suspended.

In effect, the February 22, 2015, press release of the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, notes that retired public officials; survivors of deceased public officials, beneficiaries of reversionary and temporary orphans’ pensions; personnel who are beneficiaries of invalidity pensions; beneficiaries of Pension Fund for Retired Railway workers, FOREC; next-of-kins of beneficiaries of FOREC pensions; beneficiaries of “annual allowances” and finally beneficiaries of annuities, will have to take along a photocopy of the instrument granting them right to pension and a photocopy of the National Identity Card to various payment counters of their pension offices like banks, microfinance institutions and treasury stations.

For three months running, each region will have a joint team of senior administrators from the Ministry of Finance and that of Public Service and Administrative Reform. The team will comb all banks, microfinance institutions and treasury stations where pensioners usually cash their dues. The teams are made up of a coordinator, team leader and headcount collaborators.

The operation comes on the heels of the pursuit of measures to consolidate public expenditure as directed by the Head of State, Paul Biya. Mohamadou Ousman added that the ministry was working to save another huge sum in State coffers so as to contribute to the wellbeing of Cameroonians, especially at a time the country is into vast construction sites with reforms to get a middle-income economy by 2035.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Impossible n'est pas cameroonaise. Ghost workers will always be until there is consistency in fishing them out. Good job for the money saved.

AchuD said...

This should be relentless. Actions such as these can enable more job seekers to get the employment they deserve

Unknown said...

A step in the right direction but this is just a tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of Cameroon government employees who are now resident in the United States but are still receiving salary from Cameroon. Notably a sizable number of government workers who left Cameroon as part of the DV lottery program are still on government payroll.
We had a social gathering where an individual made a scathing attack on the state of affairs in Cameroon. Out of the blue, someone made a remark that a lot of Cameroonians in the US are also part of the looting of state funds as they are still shamefully on government payroll. We later found out through the grape vine that the general remark was directed to the individual who was criticizing the state of affairs in Cameroon as he was on the government payroll.

AchuD said...

You are so correct Divine. And sadly it has become so normal that people openly ask their friends to lead them to guys at the ministries who can facilitate such "transactions". In fact I'm sure we all know of friends or family members who are earning their salaries here, but live abroad.