Ridding the police of ghost officers
The revelation by the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, that about one-third of the alleged total population of the police force is non-existent is shocking.
An audit of the police by a consultant revealed that 107,000 of the touted 337,000 members of the force are ghost officers, whose salaries are being drawn and pocketed by rogues within the agency, which is empowered by law and expected by all Nigerians to apprehend and prosecute criminals in the society.
The September 2010 external audit identified the Mechanised Salary Section of the police, police pay officers, accountants in all the states of the federation as well as bank officials, as facilitators of the rip off which amounts to N6 billion in two months.
Yet, the police force complains incessantly of being under-funded and understaffed!
The audit discovered several phony methods of misappropriating public funds, and funneling them into private pockets.
Fraudulent bank accounts were opened and operated by police officers in collusion with bank officials who sidetracked banking procedures and regulations.
This allowed up to N15 million to be paid into one officer’s account, and this payment could be repeated again and again within one month.
Ringim confessed that he was nearly trapped into accepting such a bribery that was camouflaged as reimbursement for hotel bills, but he declined.
All along, Ringim said he had been assailed with persistent reports that payment of salaries of police officers was being deliberately delayed countrywide, to the discontent of officers.
Such salaries were, perhaps, paid into private accounts, where the illicit investments yielded handsome interest for the thieving officers.
Worse still, he said, were the reports that police payroll officers manipulated salaries of colleagues and shortchanged them, pocketing the filthy proceeds. The victims of this racket have suffered quietly for a long time.
This might have contributed to their negative attitude to the public, since they are forbidden from going on strike or protesting publicly.
Really, the plague of ghost or non-existent workers, contractors and even road or infrastructure projects, is a familiar demon in the civil service.
The Directorate of Military Pensions has been alleged to be notorious for it.
All tiers of government federal, state and local councils are neck-deep in payroll fraud.
So, it is not enough for Ringim to just blow the whistle over a racket that is public knowledge, but only just being publicly admitted now.
The fraud is systemic as the attempt to bribe the Police Boss is an indicator that the clique behind ghost employees in the civil service is an integrated network of rogues.
Besides, the loss of funds arising from paying non-performing ghost officers worsens national insecurity, as Nigeria is grossly under-policed.
Is it any wonder, then, that insecurity in the nation has worsened, with kidnapping, religious and ethnic violence getting out of the control of the police and necessitating the involvement of the military with its negative repercussions?
The next important step is for the leakages that allow for this unfortunate situation to be plugged immediately and all culprits publicly brought to book to deter others.
The Police Boss must guard against the re-looting of the gained savings through other means as Such funds should be used to increase manpower and the operational efficiency of the force.
Public funds provided for police operations should not end up in private pockets.
The revelation by the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, that about one-third of the alleged total population of the police force is non-existent is shocking.
An audit of the police by a consultant revealed that 107,000 of the touted 337,000 members of the force are ghost officers, whose salaries are being drawn and pocketed by rogues within the agency, which is empowered by law and expected by all Nigerians to apprehend and prosecute criminals in the society.
The September 2010 external audit identified the Mechanised Salary Section of the police, police pay officers, accountants in all the states of the federation as well as bank officials, as facilitators of the rip off which amounts to N6 billion in two months.
Yet, the police force complains incessantly of being under-funded and understaffed!
The audit discovered several phony methods of misappropriating public funds, and funneling them into private pockets.
Fraudulent bank accounts were opened and operated by police officers in collusion with bank officials who sidetracked banking procedures and regulations.
This allowed up to N15 million to be paid into one officer’s account, and this payment could be repeated again and again within one month.
Ringim confessed that he was nearly trapped into accepting such a bribery that was camouflaged as reimbursement for hotel bills, but he declined.
All along, Ringim said he had been assailed with persistent reports that payment of salaries of police officers was being deliberately delayed countrywide, to the discontent of officers.
Such salaries were, perhaps, paid into private accounts, where the illicit investments yielded handsome interest for the thieving officers.
Worse still, he said, were the reports that police payroll officers manipulated salaries of colleagues and shortchanged them, pocketing the filthy proceeds. The victims of this racket have suffered quietly for a long time.
This might have contributed to their negative attitude to the public, since they are forbidden from going on strike or protesting publicly.
Really, the plague of ghost or non-existent workers, contractors and even road or infrastructure projects, is a familiar demon in the civil service.
The Directorate of Military Pensions has been alleged to be notorious for it.
All tiers of government federal, state and local councils are neck-deep in payroll fraud.
So, it is not enough for Ringim to just blow the whistle over a racket that is public knowledge, but only just being publicly admitted now.
The fraud is systemic as the attempt to bribe the Police Boss is an indicator that the clique behind ghost employees in the civil service is an integrated network of rogues.
Besides, the loss of funds arising from paying non-performing ghost officers worsens national insecurity, as Nigeria is grossly under-policed.
Is it any wonder, then, that insecurity in the nation has worsened, with kidnapping, religious and ethnic violence getting out of the control of the police and necessitating the involvement of the military with its negative repercussions?
The next important step is for the leakages that allow for this unfortunate situation to be plugged immediately and all culprits publicly brought to book to deter others.
The Police Boss must guard against the re-looting of the gained savings through other means as Such funds should be used to increase manpower and the operational efficiency of the force.
Public funds provided for police operations should not end up in private pockets.
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