ARECENT government payroll cleanup exercise on the Copperbelt has established that 4,000 civil servants are unaccounted for while K60 million is lost monthly through fraudulent management of the payroll. Secretary to the Cabinet Simon Miti said the payroll clean-up exercise was done last month by the Public Service Management Division, Accountant General’s office, service commissions and Smart Zambia Institute. Dr Miti said this yesterday when he opened the fifth public service senior management meeting.

“The recent clean-up exercises for the public service payroll, Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) and the social cash transfer have revealed glaring preliminary findings.

“The findings show that there is a lot of abuse and fraud by payroll end users,” he said. Dr Miti said the findings show that permanent secretaries and senior officials responsible for payroll management have not taken interest in addressing the issues. He said such irregularities cannot continue to be tolerated. “I expect you to take keen interest in reducing the wage bill by taking action against junior officers engaging in fraud,”

Dr Miti said. He said appropriate action will be taken against those who will be found mismanaging the payroll, FISP and social cash transfer money.