Ghana: 5, 861 'ghost' names removed from govt payroll this year

(AGI) - Accra, 1 dic. - Some 5,861 unauthorized names have beenexpunged from the government payroll in Ghana. This follows theintroduction of Electronic Salary Payment Voucher (E-SPV). Thesystem fully took off in January 2015 ( last year ) and hasalready made significant impact. According to the country'sController and Accountant-General, Grace Adzroe, the E-SPVinitiative had saved the country about 111 million ghaniancedi, as 27 million euros. This amount she said could be usedto meet other pressing development needs in the West Africancountry. "Some of the cases of unauthorised names that weredeleted from the payroll after the implementation of the E-SPVwere fraudulent. Those cases have been referred to theappropriate security agencies for the right action to betaken," she said. The country's minister of Finance, SethTerkper, paid a working visit to the Controller andAccountant-General's Department to ascertain activities. Shesaid since the electronic payroll system was introduced in2010, it had helped employees to access their pay slips viamobile phones and the Internet. The E-SPV was introduced inresponse to concerns over the high wage bill of publicservants. It was also part of the government's commitment tohave a robust payroll system that would ensure the effectiveand efficient management of payroll cost through theelimination of unauthorised payments. Terkper was conductedround the key departments of the E-SPV system, including thenew national data centre, the validation of payroll centre andthe support centre. Satisfied with work at the departments, hesaid the electronic payroll had facilitated the efforts of thegovernment at enhancing the management and accountability ofthe public purse. "What we are seeing is a resolve by thegovernment to migrate from the manual payroll system to anelectronic payroll regime. The presentation of the budgetstatement to Parliament is now done electronically. By means ofthe validation process, the CAGD is able to relate directlywith sector ministers, unit heads and other management units toenhance transparency and accountability," he said. He said thenew system provided a platform to run an integrated system thatensured that through effective system communication among thevarious departments, challenges in the manual system wereremoved. According to him, the delay in collating andprocessing data on workers, which was a major challenge in themanual system, was gradually being removed. "Teachers andnurses form a greater percentage of public sector workers. Anytime they leave school or are upgraded, it takes a longerperiod to process their salaries due to the frustrating natureof the old system. I am working with my colleague ministers forEducation and Health to resolve the situation in the newsystem," Terkper said. (AGI).