According to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, government employees who moved overseas while still receiving their salary but did not formally quit must return the money they were paid for the time.

During the week-long 2024 Civil Service Week, Tinubu delivered a speech at the Abuja Continental Hotel during the 2024 Civil Service Award and Gala Night.

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation revealed the information on workers who had moved overseas and were still receiving their pay without formally leaving during the media scramble to commemorate the 2024 civil service week.

But she added that steps had been done to deal with this problem.

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“We must ensure those responsible are held accountable and restitution is made,” Tinubu stated in a speech on Saturday.

“The money that the offenders have wrongfully amassed must be returned. The President declared, “Their department directors and supervisors must likewise face consequences for their complicity in the fraud that occurred under their supervision.

He pointed out that the Civil Service cannot simply be an environment where employees may do “anything is possible” and break the law without worrying about consequences or penalties.

Any country’s civil service is too vital for such misbehaviour to proliferate or be accepted.

“The government needs the Civil Service as its bedrock, engine, and locomotive in order to provide citizens with public goods. “As legislators, we are merely operators of the engines that you supply,” he continued.