Audit Service finds over 6,000 ex-staff on the state payroll
Ghost workers, unaccounted-for staff and pensioners continue to receive a regular government salary
Six thousand, three hundred and seven discontinued staff are still receiving unearned salaries through the government payroll. This is one of the findings in the Auditor General’s report on the Nationwide Payroll and Personnel Verification Audit submitted to Parliament.
“We urged CAGD [the Controller and Accountant General’s Department] to terminate the records of all the discontinued employees on the payroll and ensure the full recovery of all unearned salaries,” the report says.
“For efficiency, we also recommend a seamless integration of the ESPV [Electronic Salary Payment Voucher] system with the payroll system, thus resulting in prompt update of employees’ records,” it adds.
Staff unaccounted for
Highlights of the report produced after the audit, a nationwide exercise, include 7,823 unaccounted-for employees.
The report also shows that about 84 pensioners are still receiving their pre-retirement salary.
“We noted that the payroll system had not been properly configured to terminate automatically records of employees who attain the statutory retirement age,” it says.
The audit covered personnel on the mechanised payroll of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department for the Government of Ghana between January 2015 and June 2018. It was carried out between June 2018 and January 2020.
The 7,823 individuals identified as unaccounted-for employees who should no longer be on the payroll span 21 government ministries, departments and agencies.
Current payroll system
The Audit Service estimates that the government lost GHC467.6 million from the public purse by paying the unaccounted-for employees.
The exercise was conducted in accordance with Section 16 of the Audit Service Act 2000 (Act 584) to provide independent assurance of the sanity of the overall payroll management system.
The audit also sought to ascertain whether the current payroll system administered by the Controller and Accountant General is secure. Finally, it checked whether the payroll files were consistent with government employees’ actual personnel records.
Fred Dzakpata
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