From Dan Amasingha, Minna

Inflation of remuneration of political appointees and salary racketeering scandals are currently rocking Niger State Government.

Daily Asset investigations revealed that not less than 4,000 ghost political appointees have been placed on the payroll of the state government and have been drawing illegal salaries and allowances.

Highly placed sources disclosed that the state government loses a whopping N600 million every month to the syndicate behind the ghost political appointees.

Those in the know confided in our correspondent the modus operandi of the syndicate.

They indulge in changing the appointment levels of appointees to higher positions.

For instance it was learnt that a person appointed as Special Assistant was documented as Senior Special Assistant while those picked as Senior Special Assistants were put on the payroll as Coordinators while undergoing documentations at the office of the Secretary to the State Government.

A source said, “There is also outright inflation of the payment vouchers by the syndicate.”

This development has led to the suspension of the salaries and allowances of political appointees for the month of Sept.

According to a source, the crisis forced government to suspend payment of salaries of Special Assistants in Aug. until after their screening in Sept.

The SAs as they are commonly called have not been paid for Sept like their senior colleagues.

A highly placed source explained that the bubble burst when the documents containing the salary vouchers were presented to Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago for approval.

The governor raised the alarm over the bogus amount.

He according to sources invited the staff in charge of political appointments to explain how the list of appointees skyrocketed from 3000 to 8000.

Without any cogent explanation the governor reportedly directed the suspension of all political appointees and set up a committee to probe the anomaly.

On Tuesday, the committee concluded its assignment, yet salaries of the political appointees who had been cleared were not paid.

Efforts to reach the State Commissioner for Information were not successful as she was not in the office and could not also be contacted on her mobile phone.

However the Special Adviser Political Matters and Strategy, Nma Kolo who said there is “no scandal”  confirmed that a committee had been setup to audit the list of political appointees because it was discovered that “some civil servants” are collecting salaries of political appointees in addition to their normal salaries and allowances as civil servants.

Kolo said the committee has not submitted its report to the governor so the nonpayment of salaries of political appointees cannot be blamed on the “Problem in Zenith bank”.

He assured that the salaries will be paid soon.

However, following  threats by some of the affected  politicians  to work against the party in future  elections, and  the controversy the incident is generating, the state government yesterday directed those with genuine cases to appear before another screening exercise at Government House from Wednesday to Friday for clearance.

A terse release by an SA to the Governor, Kabiru Shehu advised all the appointees with genuine complaints to report for the screening and verification.

 “The Niger State Government wishes to inform all political appointees who have not received their September salary that a screening committee has been constituted to address the issue.

“You are required to come with your original appointment letter and BVN printout,” it read.It is said that the syndicate has made over N1.6 billion from the scam in the last three months before there scheme was detected.