Multiple salary payment still leakage on national purse

A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting in Parliament, which began on Monday and would run through Thursday, has observed that multiple payments of salaries is still having toll on the national purse.

The Government’s payroll, which is supposed to have been cleaned of “ghost names”, and being structured for upgrade is still suffering from salaries that have been lodged into bank accounts of dead employees or workers who have ceased working with their departments.

There are also people who are receiving pensions for which they are not entitled to.

These are some of the issues that were probed into at the committee’s sitting, which considered the Reports of the Auditor General of the Controller and Accountant General for the years ended 31st December 2012 and 2013.

Appearing on Monday were Ms Grace Francisca Adzroe, Controller and Accountant General, Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, and officials from Ghana Revenue Authority.

On the issue of salaries being lodged in accounts of dead people, Mr Richard Quashigah, a member of the Committee and member of parliament for Keta, informed the sitting the Controller and Accountant General’s Department had until recently lodged a cumulative amount of GH?18,000.00 into his late father’s name despite the fact that he alerted the department of the anomaly.

Both the Controller and the Minister informed the Committee of measures being adopted to streamline the government payroll.

Ms Adzroe said the introduction of the biometric payroll system is helping to address the challenges of the salaries, and there had been delay in the payment of salaries of some categories of government workers not properly imputed biometric registration data.

She said the banks have been instructed to transfer such unclaimed payment to the governments dedicated account.