Auditor General to "Chase" Public Sector Heads over GH₵ 564.2 Million “looted” through Ghost Names

The Auditor-General Department says it will surcharge officials, under whose supervision over the public payroll, has caused Ghana to lose GH₵ 564.2 million through salary payments to individuals that cannot be accounted for.

According to the Auditor-General department, the action has become necessary following the discovery in a nationwide payroll and personnel verification audit conducted by the department that 7,823 ‘ghost’ employees existed in 21 MDAs.

These unaccounted for employees at the MDAs accounted for GH¢467.6 million of the total unearned salaries.

Additionally, the report said, some 6,307 employees who were declared by their respective institutions as “discontinued” were not terminated promptly by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) on the payroll, resulting in the payment of unearned salaries of GH¢87.6 million as of June 2018.

The MDAs that have been cited in the report include the ministries of Education, Finance, Energy, Defence, Communications, Information, Health, the Interior, Railway Development and Foreign Affairs.

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The others are Local Government and Rural Development, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Employment and Labour Relations, Food and Agriculture, Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Lands and Natural Resources and Gender, Children and Social Protection.

The audit exercise was carried out in 2018, however, the Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, said he had put on hold enforcement regimes to accordingly tackle the issue and expunge the ghost names due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

 "We plan to exercise this mandate and ensure the recovery of all unearned salaries immediately after the spread of the COVID-19 is contained," he stressed.

Although the Auditor-General had decided not to act now because of the COVID-19, he urged the CAGD to take immediate steps to clean the payroll.

“We recommend that the CAGD should ensure the termination of the unaccounted for employees on the payroll. The heads of MDAs should also ensure the full recovery of the unearned salaries from the affected persons.”.

SOURCE: Graphic Online