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Public Payrolls and Security Sector Oversight
Ghost soldiers, biometric enrolment and the political cost of cleaning a security payroll.
A security payroll that cannot be audited is a security problem, not only a finance one. This article looks at enrolment, biometric systems and the resistance they meet when names come off the list.
Ghost soldiers are not a bookkeeping curiosity. They are a way to fund networks, hold commands and buy quiet. Cleaning a payroll therefore looks like an attack on those networks, which is why technical fixes stall even when the software works.
The piece is written for budget and defence officials who have to sequence reform without collapsing units in the field. It argues for a narrow first cut — identifying units where the gap between headcount and parade is largest — rather than a nationwide reset that cannot be politically absorbed.
Oversight that only exists in a ministry spreadsheet will not survive contact with commanders. Oversight that is negotiated with those commanders, and visible to the public in recovered districts, has a better chance of lasting through the next budget cycle.
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