Gov’t saves D130M after removing over 2,000 ghost workers

The government has saved about D130 million after removing more than 2,000 names from the public payroll following nationwide staff audits, Minister of Public Service, Administrative Reforms, Policy Coordination and Delivery Baboucarr Bouy has disclosed.

Minister Bouy made the disclosure on Friday at the Mansa Kunda Ministerial interface with journalists and members of the public at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre, where he outlined reforms undertaken to improve accountability, efficiency and service delivery within the civil service.

He said the reforms were introduced in response to longstanding weaknesses in the public service, including inadequate capacity, poor staff performance, inefficient service delivery, weak records management and a lack of correlation between pay and work.

According to the minister, staff audits conducted in 2024 and 2025 found thousands of workers who were either not reporting to their workplaces or could not be accounted for at their assigned stations.

“At the end of it, we were able to remove over 2,000 names on the payroll of people actually found not to be at work,” he said.

He said the exercise had also helped government recover funds that would otherwise have continued to be paid to absentee workers.

“In the last round of staff monies, we saved about 130 million,” Minister Bouy said.

The minister attributed the problem partly to the former manual attendance system, where workers could have colleagues sign attendance books on their behalf, creating opportunities for abuse and undermining accountability.

To address this, the Ministry of Public Service has introduced biometric time-attendance machines in a number of government institutions.

Under the system, civil servants are expected to clock in and out, enabling authorities to monitor attendance, identify absenteeism and detect early departures.

Minister Bouy said government is also working towards a Human Resource Management Information System that will digitize personnel records and strengthen payroll and human-resource management.

He said the reform will see paper-based records scanned and captured in individual electronic records, making information easier and faster to retrieve while reducing the risk of physical records being lost or damaged.

The minister also highlighted reforms in pension administration, saying the government has streamlined procedures to reduce delays in processing retirement benefits.

Under the Pension Act 2022, he said, pension benefits should be processed within a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of 90 days.

He further disclosed that pensions are now calculated on gross pay rather than basic salary, a move he said was intended to provide civil servants with enhanced retirement benefits.

“We think that as much as you have to pay civil servants a decent salary, it is also important in guaranteeing them a future that will give them a decent pension,” he said.

The ministry has also maintained loan schemes for civil servants, including personal, housing and car loans. Minister Bouy said the personal loan, and housing loans are accessible to civil servants across the lower grades, while car loans are restricted to Grade 10 and above.

He said loan assessments take workers’ salaries and existing financial commitments into consideration to prevent civil servants from becoming overburdened with debt.

Beyond personnel management, Minister Bouy identified the establishment of a national policy framework as one of the key achievements of his ministry.

He said the framework is intended to ensure that government ministries develop policies within a coordinated system, with clear strategies, implementation plans and monitoring mechanisms.

“Healthy policies, now you develop your strategies, now you develop implementation plans, and then you monitor them,” he said.

The minister stressed that the ultimate purpose of the reforms is not simply to modernise government systems but to improve the experience of ordinary Gambians seeking public services.

“For the civil servants, my simple message is they have been hired for a purpose, and the purpose is to deliver service to the Gambian public,” he said. 

He urged public servants to perform their respective roles efficiently, particularly where the delivery of a single service requires the involvement of several government institutions.

“For the average Gambian, they don’t care how many government agencies are involved. All that they want is the service,” he said.

Minister Bouy said the ministry’s digitalization agenda is being pursued in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Economy, with the objective of eventually moving government services and processes into digital platforms.

He said reforms, innovation and improved accountability are critical to building a civil service capable of responding to the needs of citizens and supporting national development.

Source: The Point