No more “ghost names” on Ghana’s payroll system, says Controller and Accountant General

The Controller and Accountant General, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, has said that the country’s payroll database is now free of "ghost names".

Mr Kwaning-Bosompem said this was possible due to the newly implemented comprehensive digital solution.

He was speaking at the 2024 Controller and Accountant General’s Department Annual Conference in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

“Payroll database has been an active database all these years. What it means is that we’ve gone through a process of putting intervention in place to make sure the payroll database is credible and that there would not be any instance where we’ll find an unauthorised person existing on the payroll and benefiting from the government’s resources,” he said.

"There are no ghost names [on government’s payroll] recently…” he added.

The CAGD boss however, warned that any public sector worker without a Ghana Card would risk losing his/her salary effective March 2024.

The innovative system involves the integration of the Government of Ghana (GOG) National Mechanized Payroll Database from the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) with the National Identification Authority (NIA) database.

The real-time biometric validation and verification process is decentralized to various CAGD verification centres across the country, ensuring increased accessibility and convenience.

Answering questions from journalists, Bosompem said, "There are no ghost names [on government’s payroll] recently…”