Uzodinma said this while giving an account of his first 100 days in office, in Owerri on Monday.
He promised to plough back the savings into infrastructural development.
The governor said, “This means that the government will be able to deliver more roads, more housing and better hospitals and schools in the coming months and years.
“Let me use this opportunity to appeal to my esteemed Imo people to walk with us in this journey of blocking a few wicked people from stealing from our commonwealth through payroll fraud.”
He reiterated his commitment to ensure the payment of salaries on or before the end of every month.
Uzodinma said, “While I intend to keep this promise religiously, I will not allow the payroll cabal to use it as an excuse to blackmail me into paying non-existent staff salaries that ends up in their private pockets.
“To this end, we shall do our best to recover every government asset wrongly appropriated by individuals or persons. Imo people should trust me to recover any government asset in private hand, no matter who is involved.”
Uzodimma also explained that as part of the process of enhancing transparency in the payment system, workers in the employment of the state government would be enabled to download their monthly pay slips as evidence of gainful employment via a platform in the data system.