(Ecofin Agency) - The Ivorian minister of Public Administration, Cissé Ibrahim Bacongo (photo), announced on 7th September that some 2,000 "shadow civil servants" were discovered in 2015 in the public administration.

"We have identified 2,000 workers who were signing and cashing their salary at the end of the month while using identification numbers acquired fraudulently", he declared to AFP.

These people work for the public administration without ever having gone through the normal recruitment process of passing an exam, as required by the status of the Ivorian public administration. Mr. Bacongo also made known that some 6,000 civil servants throughout the hierarchy of the public administration are at an official superior level different from the one in their official record.

In 2013, 3,000 "fictional" jobs were identified in the public administration during a census.

The Ivorian administration remains the biggest employer in the country. It currently has 183,000 public servants identified out of which "167,000 are present and paid", according to official data.