Eradicating ghost names from govt payroll a shared responsibility — Fair Wages Commission

The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has urged public institutions to continue to improve their systems to help sanitise the government’s payroll structure and completely remove non-existent workers from the payroll.

It maintained that eradicating ‘ghost names’ from the government’s payroll was a shared responsibility that required the input of all players.

Speaking during an interaction with the media last Monday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FWSC, Benjamin Arthur, said while FWSC would continue to discharge its mandate of sanitising the payroll, management of public institutions also had a duty to fish out ‘ghost names’ to help protect public funds.

“Those who are not offering any services to the public but are on the government payroll must be removed and prosecuted. It is a shared responsibility that requires the efforts of all of us.

We have a duty to protect public funds,” he said.

He said the issue of “ghost names” must not only concern public institutions whose workers were paid directly by the Controller and Accountant General Department, but also those who managed their own payrolls, or used their internally generated funds (IGF) to pay workers.

Commitment

Mr Arthur reiterated the commitment of the FWSC to discharge its mandate of monitoring the government payroll to ensure the effective utilisation of public funds.

He said due to the hard work and commitment of the FWSC, the government was able to save Ghc 345 million last year by removing “ghost names” from the payroll through the Nationwide Payroll Monitoring exercise.

“We have a mandate to monitor government payroll. We will continue to discharge this responsibility seriously to ensure that people undeserving of salaries and benefits are not found on the payroll,” he said.

The FWSC boss explained that apart from the monetary savings, the work by the commission had also helped in improving productivity levels in the public sector, which ultimately served the public interest. 

Industrial actions

The media interaction afforded officials of the FWSC to explain in detail, the mandate, scope of work, as well as programmes being implemented by the commission, while journalists also asked pertinent questions relating to public-sector pay administration.

One of the main issues that came up during the interaction was the frequent industrial actions by labour unions to drum-home demands for improved salaries and better conditions of service.

Mr Arthur bemoaned such industrial actions, which he said, did not augur well for the economy as they reduced productivity and served as a disincentive for investment.

“We have had 14 industrial actions this year. We will continue to engage the unions and address their concerns to help promote a peaceful labour front,” he added.

The commission, he explained, always dealt with labour unions in good faith, ensuring that the legitimate interests of workers were adequately addressed.

He said so far, for this year, the commission had successfully completed negotiations and signed agreements with 44 labour unions and had also migrated seven public institutions to new salary grade structures.

On how best to deal with industrial actions, Mr Arthur said there was the need for labour unions to continue to collaborate with the commission within the confines of the law for effective resolution of their grievances.

Again, he appealed to labour unions to make their proposals early to enable the government to adequately prepare and make budgetary allocations.

“If you wait and bring your proposal until the last quarter, you are likely going to demand something that the government never budgeted for and once your budget is approved by Parliament, it is by law binding on the government,” he said.

Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh