Pilot e-zwich salary payment for Comptroller staff successful

Accra, June 23, GNA - Payment of salaries of some staff of the Comptroller and Accountant General's Department using the e-zwich card has gone through successfully.

The pilot project, which covers the May salaries of staffs in the IT and Payroll department at the Head office, will eventually pave way for public sector workers to receive their salaries through e-zwich.

The General Manager in charge of Project and Business Development, Mr Archie Hesse explained that the payment of salaries onto the biometric smart card would introduce a lot of efficiency in public sector wage management.

He said the process of paying salaries via e-zwich would be shorter with less paper work and help eliminate ghost names from the public sector payroll.

"Moves to start paying public sector workers via their e-zwich cards has been a major part of the electronic payment system as that will significantly increase the use of the biometric card and also reduce the use of cash in the economy," he said.

With the successful completion of the pilot, the payment of salaries on the e-zwich card will be extended to all staff of the Comptroller and Accountant General's Department in the Greater Accra region in July and subsequently to the regional offices over a period of time.

Thereafter there would be a gradual roll-out to cover every public sector worker.

Mr Hesse said, however, that workers were not obliged to put all their salaries on the e-card.

"At the point of enrolment, the option is provided for the worker to decide what percentage of his or her salary should go onto the e-zwich card.

Since salaries disbursed through the e-zwich system will be received much faster, the worker has the liberty to put money for everyday use on the card and reserve the rest in the bank account for savings purposes or vice versa," he said.

Mr Hesse explained that since e-zwich cards use fingerprint, which is unique to each person, the system would weed out people who did not exist and cannot be identified by their fingerprints.

He added that since each person has a unique fingerprint, the system will automatically take out names with the same fingerprints. Also, salaries paid on the cards can only be accessed after a finger is placed on the Point of Sales (POS) device or the Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

"These detailed but easy to carry out process will clear out ghost names", Mr Hesse stressed.

Currently GhIPSS and the Office of the Comptroller and Accountant General are working together to ensure the success of this major project.

Banks in the country will be issuing the e-zwich cards to public sector workers, who do not have one, through various enrolment programmes.

Mr Hesse encouraged shop owners to see their banks and acquire POSes because when the public sector workers begin to receive their salaries on e-zwich card, the use of the card will experience a boom and shops with the devices will be in good business.

He said Ghana's payment system is being modernised and soon cards will be the preferred mood of payment and urged people to prepare for this revolution just as it has happened to the telecommunication and other sectors of the economy.