Exorcising ‘ghost’ pensioners
In Ghana one of the challenges to public financial management is the phenomenon of ‘ghost workers’ which basically means suspicious and non-existent workers drawing salaries on government payroll.
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The problem of payments to ‘ghosts workers’ on the government’s payroll appears to have come to stay despite initiatives to address the canker, including the verification and authentication of workers at post. The situation is even more pathetic when it comes to the payment of pensions to deceased pensioners.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the 2022 Auditor-General’s report identified that relatives of deceased pensioners benefited from unearned pensions totalling GH¢393,315.06 between 2013 and 2019 (See Daily Graphic, August 9, 2013).
The Auditor General blamed the Controller and Accountant General of continued payment of pension to some 59 deceased pensioners in the audit of public accounts of ministries, departments and agencies.
In its explanation, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) said the demise of the affected pensioners was not communicated to it for deletion to be effected. It also indicated that the department was taking steps to recover the money from the widows.
The Daily Graphic wonders why this problem had persisted all this while. Sadly, after it had been brought to light we get the reaction or response of the authorities indicating steps are being taken to address the problem.
We are looking forward to a day when payment to ghost names will be a thing of the past or reappear in the Auditor’s General Report.
It is the conviction of the Daily Graphic that the perpetrators of these acts must not only be surcharged but also arrested and prosecuted for their complicity either through their negligence or collaboration with some other staff from other agencies.
In this era of digitisation and the use of the Ghana Card, we believe that all institutions should have an integrated system where it will be easy to monitor and identify some of these anomalies without waiting for the promptings of the families.
In March last year, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced plans by the government to link the Ghana Card with the database at the CAGD as part of the measures to address the problem of ‘ghost’ workers, on the government payroll. Although the linkage was expected to have been completed in December last year, we do not know its status.
We expect the CAGD to keep to its word of completing the re-verification exercise by the close of this month for the interfacing and integration to begin. That, it said, would give identity and credibility to the pensioners paid by the CAGD.
Indeed, we have had situations in the past where workers have had to update their information with the view to ending this canker of paying ‘ghosts’ on the government payroll.
The Daily Graphic believes that Ghanaians must begin to see positive signs from these initiatives so that in the 2023 Auditor-General’s Report, there would not be any issue with payment to ‘ghosts’ workers’.
There is a need for a collective effort on the part of all stakeholders to put a stop to this form of financial haemorrhaging, which is costing the state millions of Ghana cedis.
We cannot afford to allow this canker to persist when it takes very little effort to stamp it out. Fortunately, the Births and Deaths Registry, the National Identification Authority and other related agencies are working towards merging the database of Ghanaians.
This is one initiative that will help stamp out this criminal activity that has enriched many unscrupulous persons at the expense of the state.
