From the camp of the Internal Audit Agency, the Fair Wages and Salary Commission has started its nationwide payroll monitoring exercise.
A few weeks ago, the Commission made public the planned operation to purge the public sector payroll of any irregularities.
The Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) expressed concern about the decision, but the commission clarified that it is authorised under the Commission’s Act 2007 (737) to design and monitor benefits and allowances for employees of the public sector, among other things.
The Internal Audit Agency’s payroll was examined as the exercise got up in earnest on Monday.
We asked them (the Internal Audit Agency) to do their own internal auditing and share the report with us so that we could check for ourselves. We want to make it clear that this exercise is highly serious and not a joke to the general public, as well as to sector entities and employees. As Benjamin Arthur, CEO of the Fair Pay and Salary Commission, advised, “advise yourself accordingly if you know you are not deserving of what you are taking.
The Internal Audit Agency responded by saying it was willing to work with the panel to restore reason to the government payroll system.
The Internal Audit Agency’s Director-General, Dr. Eric Osae, also disclosed that public universities and some institutions had the highest rates of payroll breaches over the course of the investigation.
He asserts that this pattern ought to be changed as soon as possible.
“You take the educational and health service sectors of Ghana and local government sectors, and you see that there are challenges there. I am not saying it is widespread in these sectors, but they are risky areas that demand an eye on the payrolls or else it will keep bloating. The other areas include tertiary institutions. There are people who go on sabbatical leave with some never returning but get paid,” Dr. Eric Kwaku Osae, Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency noted.
The commission is hoping to correct issues like overpayment, underpayment, ghost names, and other anomalies in the public sector payment structure.
