The Deputy Auditor General of the Ghana Audit Service, George Winful, has stated that the Audit Service may not be able assist workers who do not partake in the Payroll and Personnel Verification audit to secure their jobs.
He added that the moment the Auditor General appends his signature to the final list of public workers, anyone who failed to partake in the exercise will be excluded from government’s payroll”. He reiterated that, the Auditor General himself cannot do anything to help anyone after appending his signature.
He made these statements in an interview with GBC’s Ibrahim Kwarteng on Radio Ghana.
Mr. Winful said workers who are genuinely on study leave in the interest of government and those who are sick will be confirmed from the records of their respective MDA’s. He said if the Audit Service is satisfied after reviewing the documents, it would accept them respectively.
He said the enumeration exercise is free and no one must pay money for the exercise. He also said for the comfort of all workers, the enumeration centres have been spread across board and possibly close by to the workers.
Some of the places he stated as centres for the exercise include: Ministry of Gender and Social Protection, Ministry of Finance, Accra Metropolitan Assembly both old and new offices, Tema General Hospital, Kaneshie Polyclinic, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Judicial Service, Ridge Hospital, and the Regional Health Directorate.
The deputy Auditor General said documents needed for the registration are: the SSNIT biometric card, national IDs, Educational certificates, recent pay slip, appointment letter, (at least last promotion letter if there is no appointment letter)
He sounded a caution to fake public workers not to make an attempt of taking part in the exercise at all. He said the risk anticipated was small but major challenges have been detected and will be addressed accordingly.
He said the Pay Roll was introduced to improve the management of pay rolls and also to minimize corruption in the country. He said some ghost names have been detected but details will be given after the final report.
Mr. Winful said so far after the exercise in the nine regions he applauds his workers for conducting themselves well and called on public workers to report any incident of payment of money with regards to the exercise to the Auditor General.
The exercise forms part of Section 16 of the Audit Service Act, 2000 (Act 584).
The Nationwide Payroll Audit began on July 17 2018 in the Central Region to bring a closure to the perennial headache of ghost names in the Public Sector.
The exercise was initiated by the offices of the Auditor-General’s Department, the Special Prosecutor and the Ministry of Finance, through the support of the World Bank,
Story By: Nhyira Kwabi
