Thursday, July 21, 2011

Rigorous ID management is necessary in controlling ghost workers

Nigeria: Eliminating 'Ghosts' From the Civil Service (AllAfrica.com)
While Nigeria is caught in a seemingly endless battle against unemployment, several Nigerian youths possessing distinctive skills and potentials, which could make positive difference in the public service, are wasting away without jobs. This becomes more disheartening as 43,000 fake names, commonly referred to as ghost workers, who have been on the government's payroll for many years were discovered in the federal civil service ministries, departments, agencies (MDAs) and parastatals.
Read the whole thing to get a flavor of the social corrosion caused by the institutional corruption of poor identity management regimes.

Ordinary Nigerians are looking to biometrics for ways to curtail the abuses that cause so much human misery around the world.

Earlier post on this topic: Biometrics reveal a staggering level of fraud in Nigeria.