The Chairman of Irepodun Local Government Council in Kwara, Alhaji Luqman Owolewa, on Sunday, said the council discovered 339 ``ghost workers’’ on its monthly pay roll.

Owolewa said in Omu-Aran, headquarters of the council, that an audit committee would soon be set up to scrutinise the council’s pay system.
He said the audit committee became necessary in order to fish out more ``ghost workers’’ and correct other anomalies in the council’s pay process.

The chairman said that the result of his assessment of the workers few weeks after assumption of duty showed that out of the 839 workers on the council’s pay roll, only 500 were genuine staff members.

He added that ``when I assumed duty in November, I was surprised at the few number of workers reporting for duty and this prompted my undertaking a personal assessment to know what was wrong.

``I immediately ordered the stoppage of the salaries of those workers we could not identify physically.
``It was there that we discovered lots of discrepancies in the council’s past employment processes and we found out that only 500 of the 839 workers of the council were genuine staff members.’’
Owolewa said N2.5 million was now saved monthly following the process embarked upon to regularise the pay system.

He noted that the council had embarked on the execution of some community-based projects with direct impact on the lives of the people in the area.

He listed some of the projects to include the rehabilitation of township roads, boreholes, culverts and drains to enhance human and vehicular movement.

He urged unemployed youths in the area to register with the council for an opportunity to get a job as the state government was in the process of employing no fewer than 800 youths.