Abia State Government said it has saved additional N220 million on monthly wage bill following ongoing verification of workers in the local governments.

According to a statement signed by Kazie Uko, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, “This comes barely three weeks after close to 5,000 names were cleaned out of the state’s payroll after a review of the last-minute employment scam conducted by the immediate past government. That exercise saved the state about N250 million, monthly.

State Accountant General, Njum Onyemenam, said the huge savings was made using a unified payment system.

Onyemenam, who spoke Monday after a meeting with the state Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, OFR, said the verification exercise was still ongoing and that the government hopes to make more savings.

“So far, we have been able to save an additional N220 million from the ongoing verification of workers in the local governments.

“Not less than 2,300 ghost workers have recently been weeded out of the payroll, using the unified payment system and we hope to still identify more as we continue with the exercise,” the Accountant General said.

She confirmed that following Governor Otti’s directive, government had last week paid the arrears of April salaries, left behind by the immediate past administration and also June pensions to retirees.

Also, local government staff, who had been skipped when the June salaries were paid, due to their failure to submit their verified payment schedule, will receive their salaries this week, Onyemenam said.