No more ghost names on government payroll – Controller and Accountant General declares

There are no ghost names on the government’s payroll, the Controller and Accountant General, Kwasi Kwaning Bosompem, has said.

The government’s chief accountant told a gathering in Kumasi that the situation had come about because of a newly implemented comprehensive digital solution.

The said solution is behind the ‘No GhanaCard – No Pay’ policy the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) is currently readying itself to roll out effective March 2024.

It involves the integration of the National Mechanized Payroll Database CAGD with the National Identification Authority (NIA) database.

With the system, there is real-time biometric validation and verification of government employees, which process is decentralised to CAGD verification centres across the country.

“Payroll database has been an active database all these years. What it means is that we’ve gone through a process of putting intervention in place to make sure the payroll database is credible and that there would not be any instance where we’ll find an unauthorised person existing on the payroll and benefiting from the government’s resources…”

On the specific subject of ghost names, Bosompem told journalists emphatically: “…There are no ghost names [on government’s payroll] recently…”

He was speaking on the sidelines of the 2024 Controller and Accountant General’s Department Annual Conference in Kumasi.

Bawumia introduces new policy to clear ‘ghost’ names in government payroll

Barely a month ago, on January 10, 2024; Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia rolled out a new policy initiated by the government to eliminate ‘ghost’ names from the public sector payroll system.

While addressing his audience at the launch of the National Mechanised Payroll Database of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department in Accra, Dr Bawumia explained that as part of efforts to purge government’s payroll of all ‘ghost names’, the new policy would ensure that all government workers link their Ghana Card details to the payroll.

“This linkage between the NIA database and the government payroll will significantly contribute to eliminating the incidence of ghost names on the government of Ghana’s mechanised payroll system, which has persisted for some time,” Dr Bawumia stated.