Over 2800 Ghost Names on Gov’t Payroll under Investigation

Parliament on Wednesday heard that a staggering 2,531 suspected ghost names on government payroll for June, 2014 have been blocked for investigations. Two hundred and sixty-six others have been deleted from the payroll.
Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Mr Seth Terkper who was before the House to present the mid-year review of the budget statement and economic policy of the government for the 2014 financial year, explained that the payroll malpractices were discovered as a result of the pilot implementation of an electronic payment voucher system in the Greater Accra region.
He said the country could save up to GHC400 million from payroll malpractices if effective measures were implemented to deal with the challenge, putting the total estimated payroll cost of the 2,797 ghost staff at GHC36.7 billion.
Mr. Terkper said a pilot payroll audit in conjunction with the internal audit agency in the Shai Osudoku district of the Greater Accra region to validate staff strength and to determine whether adequate controls existed over the management and control of the payroll and personnel records also revealed that about 40 teachers on Government of Ghana payroll were neither sighted during a headcount nor on the nominal payroll of their management units.
“We have taken action to block the salaries of [the] 40 teachers, whilst measures are being taken to expand the audit to cover other districts and also recover illegal payments.
He said the payroll audit will continue nationwide and will remain a regular feature of the payroll administration. Other measures such as the expansion of the National Identification Authority biometric registration of existing and new civil servants and the rollout of the electronic salary voucher system will help weed out malfeasance in payroll administration.
The measures, he said, were part of a comprehensive human resource management policy system for the country being rolled out by the Ministry of Finance and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department as well as the Public Services Commission and the Office of Head of Civil Service, which will place the recruitment, transfers, payments, payment adjustments, wages, as well as other human resource policies including retirement firmly on an electronic platform accessible by managers all day long.