Government has tightened its payment systems to permanently eliminate the recurrence of ghost names on public sector payroll.
A Deputy Minister of Finance-Designate, Mrs Abena Osei-Asare who announced this, indicated that a Human Resource Management and Information System (HRMIS) was introduced to remove non-existing names on the government’s payroll.
The system, she explained, is such that until the biometric data are captured and verified, one could not receive salary from the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CADG).
Mrs Osei-Asare stated these when she appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament for vetting last Thursday.
She stated that the system is to strengthen the government’s payment mechanism and to ensure that only genuine workers are paid.
According to her, the Ministry of Finance has also enhanced its supervisory role in the bid to deal with the menace of ghost names in the public sector and save the country’s resources for development.
“There is a system where supervisors validate their employees at their various places of work every month before payment is made, and this has eliminated some ghost names in the system,” Ms Osei-Asare said.
7,000 ghost names expunged
The Auditor-General unearthed 7,823 ‘ghost’ employees in 21 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), which accounted for the loss of about GH¢564.2 million in early 2020.
In April 2017, about 27,000 ghost names were removed, according to the Finance Ministry.
This was after the completion of a SSNIT biometric enrolment exercise.
A little over 23,000 names were also suspended from the payroll as the individuals could not be accounted for in a nationwide headcount conducted by the Finance Ministry in the same year.
Fiscal deficit
Mrs Osei-Asare, who served as the Deputy Minister in charge of budgets in President Nana Akufo-Addo’s first term, clarified differences between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the government’s report on fiscal deficit.
The IMF gave country’s fiscal deficit as 15.5% but the deputy ministerial nominee described the figure as inaccurate.
She maintained that the actual figure of the country’s deficit as of December 2020 was 11.6%.
“The deficit does not include our energy sector and financial sector clean-up debts. These debts are treated separately from the country’s total debt stock since they are one-off debts that will be paid off at the appropriate time,” she explained.
However, Mrs Osei-Asare pointed out that the energy sector and financial sector clean-up debts formed part of the country’s debt.
COVID-19 expenditure
Mrs Osei-Asare has given an assurance that the government will account for all COVID-19 expenditure.
Government, she pointed out, has already accounted for some of the expenditure and will keep doing so to ensure it accounts for every cedi that will be spent.
“In 2020, Parliament approved about GH¢11.1 billion for us, we have spent GH¢8.3 billion which we have accounted for in the 2021 Budget. In the mid-year budget, you will also see some level of accounting in the money that was approved for us, provided we have spent it.
“We have up to date report on how we have spent the money that has been approved for us,” the nominee added.
Auditing spending
Responding to a question on the decision of the World Bank and the government to audit all COVID-19 expenditure, she said this was not new practice.
“Consistently, every year, the Auditor General audits all ministries, departments and agencies so if for any reason, a special fund has been set up for COVID-19 and you want to audit the fund, I think it is in the right direction that we do that,” she stated.
Mrs Osei-Asare said the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for any country to follow the procurement processes in dealing with the pandemic.
COVID-19 impact
The Deputy minister-designate reiterated that Ghana’s economy was doing very well until COVID-19 struck in 2020.
According to her, the pandemic increased government’s expenditure due to life-saving initiatives and this significantly affected the country’s economy.
“Moving forward, with the preliminary assessment that we have done, we know the dynamics will change but it will take some time,” she stated.
On why the government did not strengthen ADB or NIB to serve the purpose of a development bank, Mrs Osei-Asare explained that the National Development Bank was not one of the regular retail banks in the system.
“The government is doing all it can to support NIB and ADB to make sure the purpose for which they were set up is realised but this new bank will act as a bank to give funding to these banks to enable them to carry out their activities at a minimum cost,” she explained.
Mrs Osei-Asare said the new bank will help strengthen the commercial banks by providing them with access to capital in the country.
Payment to road contractors
According to Mrs Osei-Asare, government has consistently increased the budget allocation to the Ministry of Roads and made sure that what was in the budget was paid to the contractors.
“There are a number of activities competing for the revenue we earn. So, if we continue to increase our revenues, we will be in a better position to help our contractors.
“We need to start talking about innovative ways of funding these road contracts so that as much as possible, consistently, there will be monies in there to be paying when they submit their IPCs,” she added.
