Côte d’Ivoire saved FCfa 21 billion (€ 32 million) since beginning 2015 thanks to the removal of thousands of fictitious civil servants, reports AFP on 18th September, citing an executive from the Ivorian ministry of Public Service.

“Savings of FCfa 21 billion were made in 2015, thanks to our policy of modernisation of the public service”, declared the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ivorian minister of Public Service, Joseph Khaudjhis.

The hunt for “corrupted employees” was made possible thanks to the integrated system for civil servants and state agents (SYFAE – Système intégré des Fonctionnaires et des Agents de l’Etat), an electronic platform set up in 2012 which allows to manage all civil servants.

At the beginning of September, the Ivorian minister of Public Service, Cissé Ibrahim Bacongo (photo), announced the discovery in 2015, of 2,000 “fraudulent public servants” in his administration, the biggest employer in the country. “We have identified 2,000 agents who were collecting their pay from the Public Service while using registration numbers fraudulently acquired”, Mr. Bacongo explained, mentioning “a tedious constant job to remove the corrupted workers”.

The fictitious employees hunt comes as part of the Ivorian Public Service modernisation programme which aims to reduce the payroll which is around 50% of tax revenues, when the West African community norm is of 35%.