By Issac Asare
The Government through the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), has directed Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, MMDAs including Decentralized Heads to conduct a headcount of staff at their respective institutions to validate their existence on the payroll.
The directive reinforces the Government’s Expenditure Rationalization Drive to expunge ‘ghost names’ and address the issue of un-earned salaries from the payroll.
The directive also entreated the said Heads and Institutions to make do with the Electronic Salary Payment Voucher ESPV, system deployed to them to perform monthly validation of personnel on the payroll.
They are additionally tasked to involve their Internal Auditors in the validation and where necessary, use them to carry out specific physical identification of staff by making reference to their personal records.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Controller and Accountant-General, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem. It tasked Heads of Government Institutions to submit a monthly verification report of staff on the payroll together with the feedback from the ESPV system to the Director General, Internal Audit Agency and the Controller and Accountant Generals latest by 15th day of the ensuing month.
The release added that 30% of salaries of Ministers and District Chief Executives of the MMDAs are being deducted at source as announced by the Government.