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• Mr Seth Terkper (with hand raised)  the Minister of Finance,  interacting with Madam Grace Francisca Adzroe (left), the Controller and Accountant General, during a tour of the Data Centre at the Controller and Accountant General's Department Head office in Accra. With them are some officials of the department. Picture: MAXWELL OCLOO

5,861 ‘Ghost’ names removed from govt payroll this year

Some 5,861 unauthorized names have been expunged from the government payroll since the Electronic Salary Payment Voucher (E-SPV) fully took off in January this year.

According to the Controller and Accountant-General, Madam Grace Adzroe, the E-SPV initiative had saved the country about GH¢111 million which could be used to meet other pressing development needs.

“Some of the cases of unauthorised names that were deleted from the payroll after the implementation of the E-SPV were fraudulent. Those cases have been referred to the appropriate security agencies for the right action to be taken,” she said when the Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, paid a working visit to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department on Thursday.

 

She said since the electronic payroll system was introduced in 2010, it had helped employees to access their pay slips via mobile phones and the Internet. The E-SPV was introduced in response to concerns over the high wage bill of public servants.

It was also part of the government’s commitment to have a robust payroll system that would ensure the effective and efficient management of payroll cost through the elimination of unauthorised payments.

Government satisfied

Mr Terkper was conducted round the key departments of the E-SPV system, including the new national data centre, the validation of payroll centre and the support centre.

Satisfied with work at the departments, he said the electronic payroll had facilitated the efforts of the government at enhancing the management and accountability of the public purse.

“What we are seeing is a resolve by the government to migrate from the manual payroll system to an electronic payroll regime. The presentation of the budget statement to Parliament is now done electronically. By means of the validation process, the CAGD is able to relate directly with sector ministers, unit heads and other management units to enhance transparency and accountability,” he said.

He said the new system provided a platform to run an integrated system that ensured that through effective system communication among the various departments, challenges in the manual system were removed.

According to him, the delay in collating and processing data on workers, which was a major challenge in the manual system, was gradually being removed.

“Teachers and nurses form a greater percentage of public sector workers. Any time they leave school or are upgraded, it takes a longer period to process their salaries due to the frustrating nature of the old system. I am working with my colleague ministers for Education and Health to resolve the situation in the new system,” Mr Terkper said.

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