Business News of Friday, 20 July 2018
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2018-07-20
Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister
The Akufo-Addo Government is considering outsourcing the national payroll system to private companies in Ghana.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta who gave the hint in Parliament on Thursday said the move is aimed at ensuring effective management of the system and guaranteeing quicker and efficient payroll system.
“…As a way to ensure an efficient payroll management system which guarantees cost reduction, quicker payroll processing, data and cost validation, accountability, payment validation and improve overall efficiency, Government is currently evaluating options to outsource the payroll processing for its employees,” he added while presenting the 2018 mid-year budget review in Parliament.
This comes on the back of a major audit of the civil service by the Auditor General’s department in an attempt to find and remove ghost names from the country’s payroll database.
Ofori-Atta clarifies
The Finance Minister further noted that outsourcing the payroll system will help in achieving targets set by the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and urged Parliament to give the government the mandate to take such action.
“Mr. Speaker, outsourcing government payroll is aimed at addressing the Public Sector wage bill and it is crowding out effect on public expenditure. The overall goal is to achieve the convergence criterion of 35 percent wage bill to tax revenue, in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) from the current 48 percent,” he added.
Auditor General, Special Prosecutor to tackle payroll fraud
Successive governments have battled to keep the wage bill which continues to take a chunk of government expenditure.
Infiltration of ghost names onto the payroll system which results in unearned salaries and allowances also continue to be a headache to the government.
In April 2017, the Finance Ministry announced it had removed close to 27,000 names from the payroll at the end of the SSNIT biometric enrolment exercise.
Again, a little over 23,000 names were suspended from the payroll as the individuals could not be accounted for in a nation-wide head count conducted by the Finance Ministry.
These two actions alone, the Ministry disclosed, had saved the country over 250million Ghana cedis in 2017 alone; with a monthly savings of about GHc35 million.
As far back as 2014, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department deleted 3179 ghost names from the payroll; with the Education Ministry alone, also deleting 2,913 ghost names.
Auditor General, Special Prosecutor to tackle payroll fraud
The Auditor-General’s department in collaboration with the Special Prosecutor on July 17, 2018, began a major audit of the civil service in an attempt to rid the national payroll of ghost names.
The Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo, told the media that no excuses will be tolerated from departments and institutions.