By: Lamin B. Darboe
Communication Officer, MoPS
The Permanent Secretary (PS) Reforms under the Ministry of Public Service (MoPS) informed that Gambia Government is on the verge of dismissing 1,424 unseen civil servants following a staff audit exercise conducted in three big ministries namely: Basic and Secondary Education, Health and Agriculture in April 2024.
PS Sheriff Jallow made this revelation on Friday, April 25, 2025 during Peter Gomez’s daily Coffee Time Program at West Coast Radio.
“These unseen people’s names were already forwarded to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for dismissal,” PS Jallow informed Peter Gomez.
He revealed that D 10, 777, 898.96 in total was paid to these 1,424 people’s monthly salaries from grades 1 to 10, mainly in three ministries mentioned above, adding that their salaries were stopped in October 2024 representing at least 7 months savings.
He highlighted that the two audit exercises has now covered all the civil servants who are directly under the central Government payroll leading to the process of dismissing 1,424 and the stoppage of the salaries of 679 civil servants.
PS Jallow assured the public especially the civil servants that under Minister Bouy’s leadership, they will improve the efficiency when it comes to service delivery within the civil service.
“We know these unseen people names and sure names, job titles, grades, salaries and institutions. Even their Ministries know them because when they were not seen, the list was shared with their respective institutions for feedback. And these are people who continued to received their salaries and at some point, have exited from the system, but their salaries continue to be paid to their various Bank Accounts,” explained PS Jallow.
According to PS Jallow, the second phase of the audit exercise also started in December 2024 where 679 people were unseen during the exercise and their salaries were stopped in April.
Right now, he explained, their details were forwarded to their sectors for feed-back, and he highlighted that anyone who comes forward with a genuine reason will have his or her salary reinstated in May.
According to PS Jallow, before they undertake these staff audit exercise, both in April and December 2024, they sent press releases to media and official letters to the various institutions informing them that, PMO staff will undertake staff audit exercise from this date to this date.
About Reforms
Reforms Unit was created in 2011 under PMO, but following the creation of the Ministry of Public Service, the Unit was moved to the Ministry under the direct supervision of Minister Baboucarr Bouy.
All the activities going within the civil service, are coordinated by the Reforms Unit and there is a ten-year Civil Service Reforms Strategy program (CSRSP) approved by the Cabinet in 2018, thus responsible for the activities that are in the strategy to make sure that CSRSP are implemented and also coordinated as expected.
