A verification exercise carried out by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has revealed that some 28,367 ghost employees are working in various government departments in Balochistan.

An official in the Balochistan finance department said during Nadra's verification drive involving 249,749 government employees, the identities of 28,367 employees could not be verified.

Verification of more than 278,000 employees was conducted by Nadra on the request of the provincial government, in an effort to trace out fake employees.

Information provided by the officer and documents obtained by DawnNews revealed that most of the fake employees had blocked national identity cards and turned out to be underage or working dual jobs during the verification process.

As per the documents, 2,181 ghost employees were detected in the police department. Similarly, 2,261 employees in education, 1,568 in health and 1,372 in communication and works departments were found to be fake.

"We had given two months to the employees to come forward and clear themselves, but none of them turned up," the senior finance officer said.

Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri gave the credit for tracing out ghost and fake employees to the current coalition government.

Answering a question regarding fake employees at the head office of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), Zehri said ghost employees were recruited in the past and his government exposed them.

"All those responsible will be brought to book over fake appointments," the chief minister said.