Prosecutors in Gabon say they have discovered evidence of 3,000 fake civil servants, each receiving monthly salaries despite holding no official positions.
A corruption investigation in the central African nation – one of the continent's largest oil producers – has uncovered what is being described as a mafia-like network with a wide reach across the country.
"The beneficiaries regularly received monthly salaries, despite not belonging to any ministry," state prosecutor Sidonie Flore Ouwe told Reuters. "We have seized some of them with counterfeit diplomas and fake assignments," she said, adding that some suspects had been arrested and that those involved in the scam would be prosecuted.
Gabon is known for its bloated civil service – with 70,000 members in the tiny country of just 1.5 million people.
"About 10 years ago there were 33,000 civil servants," said Gregory Mintsa, a former civil servant who works with global anti-corruption coalition Transparency International. "How it's possible to go from that number to 70,000 in such a short period of time, I don't know."
Minsta, who in 2010 won Transparency International's Integrity award, says he lost his job as a civil servant when he began campaigning against corruption in Gabon.
"I was working at the ministry of culture. They put me in jail, they cut my salary," he added. "Now I am considered a ghost civil servant – it's impossible to know whether my salary is still being paid, and someone else is taking it. But for 56 months I have not been paid. In Gabon, public money is used to eliminate political opponents and to patronise supporters of the government."
Transparency International ranks Gabon joint 102nd of 174 countries in its 2012 annual corruption index, and says the country scores particularly poorly in perceptions of public sector corruption.
"Gabon scored 35 out of 100 in the 2012 corruption perceptions index, which measures perceptions of public sector corruption in a country. This indicates that it has a serious problem with corruption," said Chantal Uwimana, regional director, Sub-Sahara Africa for Transparency International.
But the government says it is taking measures to reform the sector. In 2009, Gabon launched an overhaul of the civil service, firing 800 employees. Last year, President Ali Bongo Ondimba used a trip to London to announce new performance contracts for civil servants, in a further effort to trim the sector.
Gabon estimates there are up to 10,000 fraudulent state employees remaining on the books, costing the nation about $50m every year.
But critics say the public sector is still characterised by nepotism and corruption.
"It is very difficult to become a civil servant in Gabon – it's a long process and if you don't have a relationship through a family member or a parent, you can't get in," said Mintsa. "Many other people like me have had their salaries cut for being associated with the political opposition, and the police and army are used to repress dissent. Things in Gabon are getting worse, not better."