The Federal Government has detected over 1,500 workers who joined the Federal civil service with fake appointment letters in the past year.

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, revealed this at the ‘National Policy Dialogue on Entrenching Transparency in Public Office Recruitment in Nigeria’ organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission in Abuja.

Yemi-Esan said the Federal Government has suspended the salary of 3,000 civil servants who failed to present themselves for verification.

She said the verification exercise is to eradicate fake and illegal recruitment in government agencies.

“Sometimes in March of 2021, this office informed the ICPC that there were quite a number of fake letters of appointments circulating in the ministries,” the civil service chief said.

“At that particular time, we discovered that in just one ministry alone, there were over a thousand individuals bearing fake letters of appointments. And they were already enrolled on the payroll.

“The Office of the Head of Service received another report, this time from the Federal Civil Service Commission itself, forwarding names of over 500 persons in various MDAs that possess fake letters of appointments.”