Following charges of payroll fraud, the Ministry of Finance has interdicted an officer from the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD).
The employee is accused of knowingly removing a teacher from the government payroll after she refused to pay a bribe.
The problem arose during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where Chairperson Abena Osei-Asare voiced concern about frequent instances of public employees being improperly removed from the payroll, often leaving them underpaid for months.
She lamented.
It’s quite distressing that your name has been removed off the payroll. For one reason or another, you have to go to Controller for up to 8 months and have yet to be restored. Meanwhile, you’re working and getting validated for many reasons. How do we treat this?
She further highlighted
Sometimes the validators make a legitimate mistake. However, it can also be a means for certain heads to demonstrate to instructors where the power resides. And it’s quite painful.
Controller and Accountant General Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem acknowledged problems in the current system, but underlined that the CAGD could only make payments if district-level validators confirmed employee information.
They validate in the district offices and decide whether these persons deserve to be paid. So, if they don’t validate you for whatever reason, we’ll have to go through the entire process again to get you paid. We, as Controller, cannot pay you if the validators have not validated you.
Officials from the Finance Ministry emphasised that ongoing digitisation has made it easier to track who activates and deactivates names on the payroll.
One official added.
Some of the concerns should have been resolved at the district level, but we don’t understand why people still want someone to solve their problems for them. We believe these are genuine issues. You went through the process, and the issues will be rectified. We will see to that.
Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Ampem Nyarko revealed that the government has initiated an investigation into new reports of payroll theft inside the CAGD.
“We’ve come across some allegations of payroll-related fraud issues that we have asked the investigation agencies to investigate,” according to him.
He emphasised the need of technology in tracking payroll activities, saying,
Fortunately, because these actions are performed on the system, it is feasible to determine who activated and deactivated someone.
There was a recent viral story of someone whose name was taken from the payroll because he refused to pay a bribe. We have taken this seriously and are conducting an investigation.
The Finance Ministry informed the public that the incident would be thoroughly investigated, and that any officer found guilty would face severe penalties.