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Mr Rudolph Kozie Sambo, the Eastern Regional Coordinating Director, has called for punitive measures against heads of institutions which validate staff salaries fraught with payroll anomalies.

He said this is one way to deal effectively with the prevailing challenge of ghost names on the payroll.

Mr Sambo said if with the introduction of the validation exercise which was supposed to check abuse of the government payroll, “we still have payroll anomalies, then the heads of institutions which validate the salaries must be held accountable”.

The Regional Director, who was giving the opening address at a sensitization forum for heads of government institutions, said validation should not be taken as a formality where heads validate without due diligence and detailed analysis.

Mr Sambo urged the Auditor-General’s Department to follow the trail of some of the payroll anomalies and fraud at the banks especially the rural banks which are alleged to facilitate some of these anomalies.

The two-week staff auditing exercise is being conducted by the Auditor-General's Department nationwide to clean government’s payroll, following some infractions recorded in the 2017 audited accounts and it would be conducted simultaneously in all the districts in the region.

Mr Daniel Domelevo, the Auditor-General, said the CAGD has previously conducted such exercises, but this is the first time for the Auditor-Generals Department to conduct a nationwide staff auditing and urged all staff on the government payroll to comply with the process.

He said the exercise was very detailed and any staff found wanting would be given 30 days to respond or have his or her name expunged from the payroll.

Mr Domelevo said his outfit was bent on cleaning the payroll to ensure that only people who were working and deserved salaries earned them.

He said by the end of the exercise about 56,000 public and civil servants on government payroll would have been audited and three courts located in Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast have been designated to hear the grievances of staff who would be found wanting in the exercise.

Mr Ayimadu Antwi, the Eastern Regional Director of the CAGD, said all stakeholders have a role to play in checking the abuse of government funds.