Government to save GH₵36.1million from correction of payroll anomalies – FWSC

The Government will save GH₵36.1 million cedis from payroll anomalies once the anomalies are corrected, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has said.

It said the anomalies were surmountable and called for support from all to clean the payroll.

Mr Benjamin Arthur, Chief Executive, FWSC, said this at a press briefing in Accra on Monday on the back of the Commission’s nationwide Payroll Monitoring Exercise, which started on April 3, 2023.

He said the exercise had covered 5,759 employees from 17 institutions as of August 2023.

The Payroll Monitoring Exercise is aimed at sanitising the Public Sector Payroll by identifying and expunging any existing fraud and anomalies on the payroll.

This is to ensure that only approved salaries and allowances are paid to deserving beneficiaries.

The phase one of the preliminary exercise covered 17 educational institutions and agencies in the Education Sector in the Greater Accra Region.

These include the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, the National Accreditation Board, National Council for Tertiary Education, and National Commission for Civic Education.

Others are the National Service Secretariat, Ghana Library Authority, University of Professional Studies, Ghana Institute of Languages, and Ghana Communication Technology University.

Mr Arthur noted that there were several anomalies detected during the exercise.

He said some employees continued to change their date of births leading to cases where one person had “different dates of birth—one on the payroll, one on their management data, one communicated by the individual himself or herself and another one from SSNIT”.

He said on validation, some validation officers were on transfer but continued to validate for employees in his or her previous district.

The Chief Executive added that there were people, with official accommodation, who still took accommodation allowance.

He said there were many cases of vehicle maintenance allowance found on the payroll which should not be the case.

Another worrying situation, he said, was some employees taking vehicle maintenance allowance whilst they continued to use official vehicles.

He called on the management of public sector institutions to take immediate actions to rectify all those anomalies.

Mr Arthur said the monitoring exercise had yielded some positive results and that the total wage bill of employees on the Single Spine and the Controller and Accountant General’s payroll kept reducing consistently from April to August though the number of employees increased within that same period.

That, he attributed partly to the monitoring exercise the Commission embarked on.

He commended the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), the Controller and Accountant General’s Department and management of other institutions for their collaboration.

“We use this occasion to say that all the collaborating institutions have helped, and they should keep on collaborating.”

Mr Arthur announced that the FWSC in collaboration with the Local Government Services would embark on the second phase of the exercise in the Greater Accra and Western Regions starting October 17.

He said that would be followed with verification exercises.

Madam Baaba Anquandah, Director, Salary Administration, FWSC, emphasised that the monitoring exercise was not meant to be a witch-hunting exercise, but to ensure equity and fairness for everyone.

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