CAGD reacts to media publications on payroll system

The Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has described media publications on payroll fraud as false.

Ms Grace Adzroe, the Controller and Accountant-General, at a press briefing on the payroll system in Accra, said the publication contained serious factual inaccuracies which affected the integrity of CAGD.

She explained that CAGD operates two payroll systems namely, IPPD Two, which is based on an Oracle platform, and IPPD Three runs the payroll of Ghana Education Service (GES) and Pension, and that the SOFTtribe Ghana Limited, a consultant of the CAGD, was contracted in 2008 to develop backup payroll system.

The CAGD has denied the publications and comments made by SOFTtribe Ghana and IMANI Ghana on CAGD's failure to migrate the payrolls of subvented agencies onto the mechanized payroll system.

Ms Adzroe explained that the department has as at the end of December 2014, migrated 120 out of a total of 140 subvented agencies, onto the mechanized payroll system, and that the rest had not been migrated due to legal and policy issues.

She added that the payroll of the National Service Secretariat was migrated in November 2010, but did not include national service personnel.

Ms Adzroe said following the recent developments with the national service personnel payroll, a decision has been taken to migrate the service personnel onto the mechanized payroll at CAGD, starting from 2015.

She said since the implementation of the IPPD Three payroll system, the payrolls of the Ghana Education Service and Pensioners had been confronted with the inability to produce salary payment vouchers.

“The implication is that until the introduction of the Electronic Salary Payment Voucher System, heads of departments and schools of GES did not have feedback on their employees on the payroll,” she added.

Ms Adzroe mentioned other challenges on the GES payroll, which she said, include the system’s inability to allow for change of name, questionable promotions and recruitments dates, wrong and zero bank account numbers, and the inability to state reasons for termination of employees.

She said, the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Public Services Commission, had set up a cabinet committee to review and address the challenges on the payroll, and implement the E-Payslip system that enables employees to view their pay details and provide feedback electronically.

Ms Adzroe said the department takes exception to publishing confidential correspondence in the media contrary to the confidentiality clause in the Service Level Agreement between SOFTtribe and CAGD.