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The Ministry of Finance has interdicted an officer of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) following allegations of payroll fraud.
The staff member is accused of deliberately removing a teacher from the government payroll after she refused to pay a bribe.
The issue surfaced during a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where Chairperson Abena Osei-Asare expressed worry about recurring cases of public workers being unfairly removed from the payroll, often leaving them unpaid for months.
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She lamented
It’s very painful that genuinely, your name is taken off the payroll. For one reason or another, you have to go to Controller for sometimes 8 good months, and you still haven’t been reinstated. Meanwhile, you are there working, and for one reason or another, you are being validated. How do we cure this?
She further noted
Sometimes it’s a genuine mistake from the validators. But sometimes too, it is a way of some of the heads showing teachers where the power lies. And it’s very, very painful
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Controller and Accountant General Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem acknowledged flaws in the current system but emphasised that the CAGD could only process payments once district-level validators had confirmed staff details.
They validate in the district offices, and they will determine that these people deserve to be paid. So if for one reason or another they don’t validate you, then it’s the same process that must be repeated for us to pay you. We cannot, as Controller, pay you if the validators haven’t validated you
Officials from the Finance Ministry stressed that ongoing digitisation has made it easier to trace who activates or deactivates names on the payroll.
One official added.
Some of the issues could have even been resolved at a district level, but we don't understand why people still want to see somebody to resolve their issues for them. We think they are genuine concerns. You've gone through the process, and they will be resolved. We'll see to that
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Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Ampem Nyarko confirmed that the government has launched investigations into new reports of payroll fraud within the CAGD.
“We’ve come across some allegations of payroll-related fraud issues that we have asked the investigation agencies to investigate,” he stated.
Highlighting the role of technology in tracking payroll activities, he added,
Fortunately, because these things are done on the system, it is even possible to see who activated somebody, who deactivated the person and all that. There was one that went viral recently about someone whose name was removed from the payroll because he did not pay a bribe. We have taken a serious view of this, and it is being investigated.
The Finance Ministry assured the public that the matter will be thoroughly investigated and that any officer found culpable will face strict sanctions.