The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced that it will be removing unverified civil servants from its payroll after the conclusion of the ongoing Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) verification exercise on October 27.
Mohammed Ahmed, the Director of Communication at the office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), made this announcement in a statement released in Abuja on Wednesday.
Since its implementation in 2007, the IPPIS has aimed to achieve transparency, accuracy, safety, and reliability in the management of personnel records within the government. It was also introduced to address the issue of excessive personnel costs.
In September, the federal government delisted over 17,000 government employees from the IPPIS platform for failing to comply with verification exercises that had spanned over five years. However, a two-week grace period was given to the unverified officers to rectify their status.
The office of the HOCSF, which is responsible for maintaining official records and information about all public servants, has been working towards cleansing the payroll system.
“Driven by the government’s commitment to eliminate ghost workers and prevent leaks in personnel costs, the implementation of IPPIS began with the Payroll module instead of the Human Resource component,” explained Mr. Ahmed.
He further explained that the office of the HOCSF had conducted several verification exercises, during which some civil servants were unable to update their records. As a result, these individuals approached the office with pleas to be given another opportunity to comply.
“The portal was reopened from October 3 to 13 to allow these officers to update their records. They were then required to come to Abuja for a physical verification exercise, as the office had already exhausted the allocated budget and could not deploy additional staff to conduct the exercise in the states,” he added.
The verification of records for all civil servants will be finalized at the conclusion of the ongoing exercise. Any officer whose records cannot be verified will be removed from the government payroll at the end of the two-week exercise, on Friday, October 27.
These measures are part of the government’s ongoing efforts to tackle fraud, promote accountability, and ensure the effective management of public resources.
