The digitalisation agenda of government is said to be yielding positive results in the fight against corruption as hundreds of ghost names continue to be uncovered on public payroll.
A staggering 148,000 public workers out of a total of 602,000 workers on the payroll of the Controller and Accountant Generals Department have been found to have identifications which do not match any biometric identification at the National Identification Authority (NIA).
Dr. Bawumia disclosed these at this year’s annual internal audit conference in Accra yesterday during which he outlined the crucial role the internal Audit Agency can play to help inject fiscal discipline in resource mobilisation.
“There are also 148,060 employees out of 601,948 with biometrics that did not match anyone on the National Identification register (I.e. no Ghanacard).
“We are going to check the SSNIT database to see if their biometrics can be matched. It is also possible that some of those with matching biometrics may also have multiple employee accounts”, he added.
This was after a biometric audit by the Controller and Accountant General Department.
“I’ve heard of ghost workers but I’ve never heard of ghosts who are twins or triplets…that’s a new one but we will get to the bottom of the corruption with ghost workers on our payroll”, he decried.
Vice President Bawumia added that in the first phase of clean-up exercises by the Controller and Accountant General Department and the National Identification Authority (NIA), some 533 ghost names were also uncovered with multiple identities on the payroll.
The startling revelations by the Vice President, followed the reports that a recent biometric audit by the National Service Scheme (NSS) found about 14,000 ghost names on its payroll, which saved the scene about GHC112 million annually.
Vice President Bawumia who was not pleased with the level of losses due to corruption charged the various prosecuting agencies to begin the processes of prosecuting persons involved in such criminal activities.
New direction
Speaking on at the conference on the theme: “Injecting Fiscal Discipline in Resource Mobilization and Utilization for Sustainable Development”, Vice President Bawumia said as part of government’s quest to achieve fiscal consolidation, many steps have been taken, including improved revenue mobilisation and curbing wastages in the public sector by using digitisation.
These efforts, he indicated, include a rigorous fight against identity fraud and corruption in the public sector, through the robust identity system the government is building with the Ghanacard and the digitisation of government services.
“A key focus of the 2022 budget is fiscal consolidation to enhance debt and fiscal sustainability as we implement our economic revitalization and transformation programme to better the lives of Ghanaians.
“These measures, which include expenditure validation and revenue enhanced measures are to reposition the Ghana economy for accelerated growth. Indeed, implementation of the measures highlighted in the 2022 budget will lead to significant fiscal adjustment from a projected fiscal deficit including Energy IPP payments and financial sector clean-up cost of 12.1% of GDP in 2021 to 7.4% in 2022, representing an adjustment of 4.7 percentage points in just one year.
“Over the last four years, our approach has been to put in measures to build a solid foundation for domestic mobilisation, cost saving and fighting corruption through digital transformation. And considerable progress has been made.
SSNIT saves $126 million
Through the government’s digitisation drive and the implementation of a national identity system, SSNIT also announced major savings of up $126 million.
This is because the state-owned insurance company will no longer print ID cards for its targeted 10 million people, following the adoption of the Ghanacard as SSNIT numbers.
Government’s digitalisation agenda, which is being spearheaded by Dr. Bawumia is aimed at stopping wastage and corruption in the country.
As part of this agenda, government has rolled out mechanisms including sanitising the public payroll and enhancing value for money in public expenditure.
Government assurance
President Nana Akufo-Addo has promised to revive and return Ghana’s ailing economy to the path of economic growth.
Vice President Bawumia also gave assurance to the business community and the general public that government will not rest until such time that the economy begins to mirror pre-Covid-19 numbers.
The ongoing negotiation to secure a balance of payment support programme with IMF and other interventions by government, are being taken to deal with the worrying depreciation of the cedi.
It will also to bring down inflation, which has gone past the 30% mark, the worst in the last two decades.
