The Chairman of the Commission, Vin Ezeaka, disclosed this to journalists in Awka, the state capital, on Friday.

Ezeaka said the commission also discovered that about six senior employees at the various local government areas forged their certificates purportedly to have been issued by the Imo State University.

According to him, among the ghost workers include 59 staff of the commission who had died a long time ago, 40 others who had retired and are still on the payroll of the commission, and about 11 others living abroad are on the payroll of the state government.

He said, “The discovery was made during a staff personnel audit launched to sanitise the local government system in the state. In the process, a startling revelation of over 427 workers were discovered to have been on the local government payroll without being staffed.

“Out of the 427 ghost workers uncovered, 59 were staff of the commission who had died a long time ago, 40 others had retired and are still on the payroll of the commission, while about 11 others are staff living abroad whose names were still on the payroll of government.

“Others were some staff members of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe. We discovered 59 deceased staff who are still receiving salaries, 40 retirees also receiving salaries, and above all, we discovered 222 workers on the payroll who nobody could identify as workers in any of the 21 LGAs and we have many of them living abroad and still receiving salaries.