By Luka Binniyat

KADUNA—Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State has personally started one-on-one screening of 9000 civil servants whose names were submitted to him as suspected ghost workers by the office of Head of Service.

At the conclusion of the verification in July, about 9,000 names were struck off from the pay roll of Kaduna State government. The names were then submitted to el-Rufai.

Kaduna State Head of Service, Mrs Alisabatu Dada-Onaz, said any genuine worker whose name was on the list was directed to contact the governor directly to establish his genuineness as an employee of government.

Consequently, Governor el-Rufai yesterday started his screening with 21 persons.

It was then established yesterday that the affected employees had issues based on having duplicate or multiple Personnel Sub-head Numbers, PSNs, but were real civil servants

“All the 21 persons in this batch were able to provide documents that verified their status, and they were cleared.

‘’Each received an apology for the difficulties they had faced. They were assured that they will be restored to the payroll, and all their arrears paid.

‘’While resolving the multiple PSN issues that had entangled these officers, four possible ghost workers were identified and it was agreed that these four persons be provided an opportunity to clear their names.

‘’They are Akwanko Ezekiel, Yerima Sani,Solomon Makasua and Mariam Idris  These four persons have a week to come forward and table all documents that can testify to their bonafides, a source said yesterday.

Narrating their joy over clearance by the governor, Monica PZ Ango,who works with the Dental Centre, an agency of the Ministry of Health and Human Services,said her problem was that she shared her Personnel Sub-head Number with three other employees as a result of which her salary was stopped in February 2016.

She said after writing to the governor and attaching her relevant documents, she was invited to come for a special screening conducted by the governor himself.