Jos – The Appeal Panel verifying issues of ghost workers in Plateau Civil Service says the number of the ghost workers on the state’s payroll have not yet been established.

The Chairman of the panel, Mrs Leah Yarling, made this known in an interview with reporters in Jos on Tuesday.

Yarling said that cases before the four-man panel were those of persons not cleared by the committee that conducted a bio-data of staff in the state civil service.

She said that most of the workers who appeared before the committee were persons with one administrative problem or the other that needed clarification.

“The process is still on course, some persons have been cleared for payment based on the verification while some have yet to be cleared for one reason or the other.

“Nobody has been declared a ghost worker, the process of finding out the actual workforce of the state is still in progress and that is why the appeal committee was set up.

“We have two lists before us containing names of those cleared and those not cleared. Our emphasis here is the list of those not cleared,’’ she explained.

She also admitted that the list contained the names of top civil servants, saying: “of course the names of directors are there, are they not civil servants.

“They are staff, this is an appeal panel and there is no process that certain complaints will not arise.

“Some have important documents missing from their files while some are supposed to have retired but are still in service.

“When we are satisfied with the details, then we will clear them. We are working with the heads of the MDA’s in this direction to make verification quicker.”

A member of the panel, Mr Timothy Parlong, assured that the committee was concerned with the staff welfare.

According to him, nobody is happy that payment is being delayed. It is a good exercise not meant to punish the staff,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Finance, Mr Davou Mang, had appealed to the state workers for patience over delays in the payment of salaries for the past three months.

He said the delay was caused by the current verification of workers in the state to determine the actual staff strength of the state workforce.

The commissioner said that 11,000 workers have completed the process and have been completely cleared because they had no problem. (NAN)