The Mozambican state has lost around 725 million meticais by paying salaries to ghost employees over the last seven years, said the Director of Planning and Cooperation at the Ministry of State Administration and Civil Service, Brisa Novela.  

The inspections uncovered more than 3,240 state employees and agents who were illegally receiving salaries in public institutions.

"So the proof of life has helped a lot and has allowed the state to ensure that resources are not wasted on situations that the state is not aware of... which are the payment of salaries and the avoidance of ghost employees," he explained.

Novela said that the first revelations of fraud in the processing of salaries for employees unknown to the state began to appear in the first two years after the implementation of the Proof of Life.

"...when we questioned the sectors to find out why all the institution's employees received their salaries this month, but we have a list of more than 400 employees here who haven't come to prove their lives and haven't received their salaries, the sectors themselves sometimes couldn't even tell us who these employees were," she said, quoted by today's Radio Mozambique.

She said that most of the cases were registered in the education, health and defense and security sectors, and there are already officials reporting to the police.

It should be remembered that, on Saturday (05), the Commander General of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique, Bernardino Rafael, guaranteed that it was not true that there were ghost employees in the corporation. "Rest assured, we know each other," he said in Cabo Delgado.