Veep inaugurates ministerial committee on payroll

President John Dramani Mahama has inaugurated a four-member ministerial committee to oversee the implementation of a tightened payroll management regime.

The move, according to him, was intended to plug loopholes in the country's revenue system and ensure the integrity of the payroll mechanism.

Inaugurating the committee on behalf of the President at the Flagstaff House yesterday, the Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, reiterated the government's commitment to eliminate ghost names from the payroll system.

Members of the committee are Mr Seth Terkper, the Finance Minister, who is the Chairman; Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, the Minister of Education; Mr Haruna Idrissu, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, and Mr Julius Debrah, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development.

"His Excellency the President has been leading the exercise to establish an accurate and robust payroll by finding any fraud that may exist in the system and punishing people involved in it," the Vice-President said.

Payroll

According to him, the team had been charged with the responsibility for supporting the strengthening of the payroll system to prevent the recurrence of malpractices.

Mr Amissah-Arthur enumerated the various measures undertaken by the government to nip the menace in the bud, including the directive to the Controller and Accountant-General to provide data on the payroll to all unit heads for verification on the first day of each month.

He explained that the practice would continue every month to ensure that any changes were immediately identified to ensure that problems did not recur in the future.

The Vice-President added that district unit heads would be required to verify the names and submit the list by the 8th of each month to their regional heads.

He warned that any head who refused or failed to provide a verified list to his or her respective regional head would be sanctioned.

"The Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (GAGD) will then use the verified lists to update the payroll records. This will be done as a matter of urgency to complete the exercise as fast as possible," he said..

He called on the members of the committee to work assiduously to ensure that the nation benefited immensely from the exercise.

Members of the committee pledged to deliver on their responsibilities to ensure a ghost-free payroll system in the country.