{"id":23574,"date":"2016-02-29T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-government-s-audit-removes-nearly-24-000\/"},"modified":"2016-02-29T00:55:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:55:57","slug":"nigeria-government-s-audit-removes-nearly-24-000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-government-s-audit-removes-nearly-24-000\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria government&#8217;s audit removes nearly 24,000 non-existent workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The Nigerian government has removed nearly 24,000 workers from its payroll after an audit revealed they did not exist, the Finance Ministry has said.}<\/p>\n<p>The move has enabled a monthly saving of around $11,5m (\u00a38m).<br \/>\nThe audit is part of an anti-corruption campaign by President Muhammadu Buhari, who took power last year.<\/p>\n<p>Corruption and mismanagement have long been a challenge to Nigeria&#8217;s growth, and the government has promised to cut costs to face an economic slowdown.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria is Africa&#8217;s biggest economy and the continent&#8217;s top oil producer, and its finances are under strain due to the recent collapse in oil prices.<\/p>\n<p>The country has also faced rising inflation, a stock market slump and the slowest pace of economic growth in more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p>{{Is corruption Nigeria&#8217;s biggest challenge?}}<\/p>\n<p>The audit started in December used biometric data and a bank verification number to identify holders of bank accounts into which salaries were being paid, Reuters news agency reports.<br \/>\nThis process allowed the identification of some workers who were receiving a salary that did not correspond to the names linked to the bank accounts.<\/p>\n<p>{{Nigeria&#8217;s economy}}<\/p>\n<p>Africa&#8217;s largest economy, biggest oil producer and most populous nation<\/p>\n<p>Oil-rich, but facing worst economic crisis in years after falling oil prices<br \/>\n62.6% of its 170 million population live in poverty<\/p>\n<p>Average annual earnings &#8211; $1280 (\u00a3850)<\/p>\n<p>Source: UN<\/p>\n<p>It also revealed that some employees were receiving salaries from multiple sources.<br \/>\nSome 23,846 non-existent workers were removed from the payroll, an adviser to the finance minister was quoted by Reuters as saying.<\/p>\n<p>Periodic checks and electronic audit techniques will be periodically carried out to prevent new frauds, the ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Officials have said the savings resulted from the anti-corruption measures will help the country tackle its crisis and prevent job cuts.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-10670 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88493031_72134f06-6399-4eee-8be1-91ec83e1f2cb.jpg\" alt=\"President Buhari has vowed to tackle corruption in Nigeria\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The Nigerian government has removed nearly 24,000 workers from its payroll after an audit revealed they did not exist, the Finance Ministry has said.} The move has enabled a monthly saving of around $11,5m (\u00a38m). The audit is part of an anti-corruption campaign by President Muhammadu Buhari, who took power last year. Corruption and mismanagement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23574"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23574"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}