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The Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), has suspended the August salaries of some workers on government’s mechanized payroll system.

Those affected according to the Controller includes public sector workers who failed to validate their payroll through the Electronic Salary Payment Voucher (ESPV) system, those with irregular or no bank account details, those with wrong SSNIT numbers, as well as employees not captured on the biometric registration system at the Ministry of Finance.

The Controller said it took the decision based on Regulations 297 of the Financial Administration Regulation, 2004 (LI 1802), with an objective of cleaning the payroll system and “improve the efficiency of the government of Ghana payroll management.”

Affected employees according to the CAGD in an announcement in the Thursday edition of the Daily Graphic newspaper, would have to take advantage of the requirement for mandatory monthly validation of salaries.

“Those whose salaries were suspended due to non-validation of salaries would be paid at the end of September 2017 on the condition that their heads of department validate them on the ESPV platform for September 2017,” the CAGD added.

It further in the notice said employees declared unknown but not missing at their various places of work, are required to submit reactivation letters signed by their heads of departments to the Controller and Accountant General’s department payroll processing division.

“Employees with zero or irregular bank account details and others with wrong or without SSNIT numbers and employees sharing the same account numbers should submit the required information to the payroll processing directorate of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department for processing. Employees yet to go through the biometric registration exercise should contact the biometric registration center at the Ministry of Finance with the necessary documents for registration,” the notice signed by the Controller and Accountant General, Eugene Ofosuhene added.

Ghost names on payroll

Government undertook a similar action in April 2017 against public sector workers who were not captured on the new SSNIT biometric system.

A press statement from the Ministry of Finance at the time explained that “those affected had not been registered on the new SSNIT biometric system, despite several directives to do so.”

The Ministry also announced the suspension of payment of SSNIT contribution to some 23,029 employees because they could not be accounted for in a nationwide head count which ended on the 22nd of October 2016.