The salaries of 3000 civil servants and 4000 contract workers have been suspended making a total of 7000 state functionaries who risk dismissal by April 29, 2016.

According to the Minister of Public service and Administrative Reforms, the new computerised integrated system for the management of state workers and the pay role seeks to attribute each worker to a duty post.

Since the operation was launched, some 7000 workers on government's pay role are feared to be ghost workers because they have not been identified with any service so far.

In a bid to clean up the payroll, in January 2016, the salaries of 4000 contract workers were suspended pending their identification and in March, the salaries of about 3000 civil servants were also suspended.

Officials in charge of the SIGIPES II project say the April 29 deadline is intended to allow time for workers in rural area or those who were sick and did not identify themselves earlier to do so.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms, Charles Ako Takem said that in December 2015, few months after SGIPES II was launched, a list of 10000 contract workers and 14000 civil servants who had not been identified was published. Since then a good number of them have regularised their situation.

He noted emphatically that those workers who unduly abandoned their duty or travelled abroad will be systematically dismissed or sacked from the public service.