The provincial government is determined to eliminate corruption and weed out these ghost employees: Shazia Marri.—APP photo

KARACHI: A verification exercise conducted in collaboration with Nadra has revealed the existence of thousands of “ghost employees” in Sindh government departments.

Disclosing this at a press conference here on Saturday, provincial Information Minister Shazia Marri said the government had so far lost over Rs10 billion on account of salary payment to these non-existent employees.

“The provincial government is determined to eliminate corruption and weed out these ghost employees, ” the minister asserted.

She said scrutiny of 401,388 employees carried out by Nadra showed that 327,578 of them had new CNICs (Computerised National Identity Cards) while 73,810 had old NICs.

She said Nadra had no record of 20,456 manual NICs, while 21,438 fake CNICs had been detected. Of these, 638 had been blocked.  The scrutiny revealed that 1,264 people held two government jobs.

Over 800,000 youths in Sindh turn 21 every year and a majority of them become eligible to join the workforce, but the “ghost employees rob them of this opportunity”.

Ms Marri said the scrutiny process was continuing, promising that action would be taken against law-breakers.

APP adds: She said 381 employees had died but their salaries were still being drawn. There was a discrepancy in the date of birth of 16,065 employees.

Opinion

Editorial

Digital growth
Updated 25 Apr, 2024

Digital growth

Democratising digital development will catalyse a rapid, if not immediate, improvement in human development indicators for the underserved segments of the Pakistani citizenry.
Nikah rights
25 Apr, 2024

Nikah rights

THE Supreme Court recently delivered a judgement championing the rights of women within a marriage. The ruling...
Campus crackdowns
25 Apr, 2024

Campus crackdowns

WHILE most Western governments have either been gladly facilitating Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, or meekly...
Ties with Tehran
Updated 24 Apr, 2024

Ties with Tehran

Tomorrow, if ties between Washington and Beijing nosedive, and the US asks Pakistan to reconsider CPEC, will we comply?
Working together
24 Apr, 2024

Working together

PAKISTAN’S democracy seems adrift, and no one understands this better than our politicians. The system has gone...
Farmers’ anxiety
24 Apr, 2024

Farmers’ anxiety

WHEAT prices in Punjab have plummeted far below the minimum support price owing to a bumper harvest, reckless...