The Controller and Accountant General’s Department suspended the salaries of about seven thousand workers in the public sector because their heads of department failed to validate them as workers in their respective institutions.

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.

Sixty percent of the affected workers are known to be teachers.

But speaking to the media on the subject matter, President of NAGRAT, Christian Addae Poku, said they must not be made to suffer for the inefficiencies of government.

“From now in the next two weeks, they will start the payroll run again and when they start, it is difficult to make any changes. So within the shortest possible time, they have to engage the Ghana Education Service (GES) to resolve the issue fully because the teachers cannot continue to work for two months without pay. That will not be permissible. We expect that the Controller and Finance Ministry engage on this,” he said.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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An internal audit carried out by YEA has exposed a huge payroll fraud which is believed to have cost the country GH $50 million.

[contextly_sidebar id=”3uzmRQKEsWZbp91vYpPcZ3ZDj3ejcnY7″]The amount is believed to be a sum of unearned salaries paid to unposted beneficiaries, funds for official use which were paid into personal accounts, and procurement without adherence to due process.

The former CEO, who is insisting that the anomaly occurred after he left office, in his response, also called for a detailed report on the audit to promote fairness and transparency.

“The YEA Beneficiary management software after satisfying prescribed criteria, electronically signed all beneficiary appointment letters. My signature was embedded in the database and as and when the appointment letter was generated by the database, my signature was placed electronically on the appointment letter. According to the press statement/conference, these anomalies were detected in March and April of 2017. I handed over the management of the agency to the current CEO on Friday the 24th of February 2017, and so these anomalies occurred after my handing over. These are obviously fraudulent, and I would encourage the management to involve the appropriate authorities and apprehend those who forged our signatures,” Mr. Beecham explained.

“I commend the management for undertaking such an exercise. However in the interest of fairness and transparency, a detailed signed report from those management conducting the exercise would be very helpful and enable us to comment on the basis of empirical data. I would urge the publication of this report by management,” he added.

Earlier this year, YEA suspended the payment of allowances to over 60,000 beneficiaries on suspicion of discrepancies in the report handed to it by the managers under the previous administration.

The full-scale audit revealed that, many people who did not deserve to receive money from the Agency were doing so fraudulently.

So far, the Agency under the new managers, has deleted some 16,839 names from the payroll, which it says has saved the country Ghc20 million.

Click here to read Mr. Beechem’s full response

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The post YEA fraud didn’t entirely occur under my tenure – Former CEO appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

A press statement from the ministry copied to Citi Business News, explained that “those affected have not been registered on the new SSNIT biometric system, despite several directives to do so”.

Mr. Ofori-Atta in his presentation of the 2017 budget, announced government’s commitment to clean the payroll.

“To that effect, the Minister requested that, the Controller and Accountant General on the 10^th of February 2017, inform all public servants on the Government of Ghana mechanized payroll system who had not registered on the new SSNIT biometric system to do so by the end of February 2017,” the statement said.

It further warned that, salaries for un-enrolled workers have been suspended indefinitely until the SSNIT re-enrollment is completed by the said workers.

This was after the February 28^th, 2017 deadline was further extended to March 31^st 2017 by the Minister of Finance.

“This directive will come into effect on the  April 2017 payroll. Consequently, those not registered with SSNIT, as directed shall be treated as “Ghost” going forward and shall as such be removed from the payroll for April 2017”.

The statement however added that “SSNIT is adequately prepared to validate any affected pensioner, across the country, who make themselves available to be counted and validated going forward. Several mobile enrolment kits are on standby to cater for affected pensioners who may not be able to travel to their nearest SSNIT district offices to complete the validation process”.

“These two directives, resulting in the identification of close to 50,000 “Ghost” names on the payroll and Pensions Registry, are expected to save the country some GH35 million in payroll cost on a monthly basis or a total of over GHS250 million in 2017 alone,” it added.

The Minister called on all citizens to help protect the public purse as Government commits to bringing “Ghana beyond Aid”

“Any real person whose name has been suspended can visit any of the SNNIT branches nationwide to be biometrically re-enrolled. SNNIT has set up enrolment desks within all their offices”.

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By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

The post Govt to remove over 26,000 workers from payroll appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

These names had been captured as teachers in the government schools nationwide.

The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper revealed this when he touted government’s achievement in drastically reducing ghost names on Ghana’s payroll system on the Citi Breakfast Show.

He attributed the success to a number of measures put in place by government including electronic verification of public sector workers.

Mr. Terkper who made this known on the Citi Breakfast Show yesterday, Friday, said they have so far been able to identify about 4,000 fake teachers in the educational sector.

[contextly_sidebar id=”kaDjIaT7RybOJ1DmlzZjpl7WkIAVhY9P”]“Today we are not talking about ghost names. I would hope that we would do a story on ghost names as to why we are not hearing that phenomenon, as to why we are able to identify 4,000 fake teachers at a time. This is because we’ve put concrete measures in place including electronic verification,” he added.

400 fake teachers picked up

It will be recalled that the Ghana Education Service in 2015 began a verification process across the country to flush out all teachers using fake certificates.

About 400 fake teachers were subsequently picked up by the Bureau of National Investigations for questioning.

‘Fake teachers’ will be punished

The Minister of Employment, Haruna Iddrisu earlier this year hinted that government will penalize teachers found to be operating with fake documents.

“We have some revelation of irregularities and fraud bothering on certificates backdating of some of the details. Backdating in particular of date of appointment and year of appointment and all that, has a consequence in computing the compensation of a particular employee. Those determined to have forged certificates and committed other irregularities will face the full rigorous of the law apart from the fact that they will be denied their compensation and their claims,” he added in an interview with Citi News.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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