The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has uncovered 908 suspected ghost workers across at least 50 federal ministries, departments and agencies, recovering about N942 million allegedly paid as fraudulent salaries during a payroll verification exercise.

The ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu, disclosed the findings while discussing the commission’s investigation into payroll fraud across federal government institutions, according to a BBC Pidgin report on Wednesday.

The Commission revealed that the Nigeria Police Force recorded the highest number of suspected fake workers among all institutions examined.

Aliyu said the scale and nature of the fraud uncovered points to deliberate and systematic manipulation of government payrolls by officials exploiting their positions.

He cited one particularly egregious case involving an individual who allegedly added his wife, son and mother-in-law to the payroll while also collecting the salaries of 12 other workers. The alleged abuse remained undetected until the ICPC conducted its verification exercise.

Aliyu said, “For this operation, we identified 570 people whom we suspect are among the fake workers collecting salaries without working.”

Aliyu added, “For this agency, we identified 80 names of people collecting salaries even though they are not workers of the agency.”

The ICPC also identified suspected ghost workers in several other federal ministries and agencies during the verification exercise.

The Federal Ministry of Works recorded 56 suspected fake workers, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 24.

The Federal Ministry of Electricity and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment each recorded 17, while the Federal Ministry of Health had 15 and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation recorded 12.