Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, says his administration has discovered no fewer than 199 ghost doctors on the payroll of the state government.

Matawalle said the state government was paying salaries for 280 medical doctors, noting that only 81 of them were active in the state.

The governor made this known in an interview with journalists in his residence in Maradun, the headquarters of Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State on Saturday.

He stated that he had met with the members of the Zamfara State chapter of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) on how to trace the 199 ghost doctors who spent a long period of time collecting salaries illegally with a view to blocking those behind the manipulation.

Governor Matawalle disclosed that the ghost doctors were discovered following a result of the ongoing biomedical data capture of the entire state workforce through the office of the state Head of Service.

The governor, however, noted that Zamfara State Government was ready to commence the implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage to workers in the state.

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“The stakeholders confirmed to me that the motive behind the delay on the payment of salary to health workers was the fact that they wanted to ensure that things go right and we are going to address all the lacuna in the health sector very soon.

“I have paid both November and December salaries to all the health workers but unfortunately we discovered discrepancies on the way the salaries are being paid,” Matawalle said.

He assured that no genuine civil servant will be retrenched by his administration with regard to the implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage payment.

“I am not going to retrench any worker who is genuinely employed by the state government in that regard. In fact, I have built 450 houses for the state civil servants and I will hand over the houses to them on Sunday.

“But we are going to ensure sanity in the civil service according to the law so as to enable us to implement the N30 thousand minimum wage accordingly,” Governor Matawalle added.

Speaking on the security challenges bewildering Zamfara State, the governor disclosed that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, had promised to establish a gold refinery in the state, adding that it was part of his (Tinubu) plans to end insecurity in the state.

“When I sat down with our presidential candidate, I said to him our problem in Zamfara State is armed banditry; what are plans to end the menace?

“He said if they establish gold refinery in the state, those coming to take over the process will be the ones to design how best that investment can be protected and I agreed with him,” Matawalle said.

The Star