The Auditor General (A-G), Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo has called on all government employees drawing salary from the Controller and Accountant General’s payroll platform to help clean the payroll to rid it of unwanted elements. He said “it is a great worry that Government is using 45% of locally generated revenue to pay salaries of workers who are less than 700,000 of the total population of Ghana estimated at 28 million”.

Mr. Domelevo made the call in Koforidua during a sensitization exercise for Heads of Departments, Agencies, Municipal and District Assemblies’ representatives, and to begin the payroll audit in the Eastern Region. The exercise runs from Tuesday 11 September 2018 to Friday 21 September 2018.

The A-G said the purpose of the exercise is to clean the government payroll data and free space for government to employ young energetic Ghanaian graduates desiring to contribute to national development. “We must all work to prevent a situation where people are not working for the State but are drawing salaries. This is unacceptable and should not be tolerated”, he said

On his part, the Deputy Auditor-General (DAG) in-charge of Central Government Audits of the Audit Service, Mr. George S. Winful assured all employees on government payroll that the payroll audit team will afford all employees the benefit to provide relevant documents to support their status. “This exercise is not aimed at deleting genuine employees from the payroll. Employees should therefore not panic but cooperate with the audit team to ensure a smooth exercise”. Mr. Winful said special centres have been set up for health facilities, Prisons and other specialise Agencies to ensure that they continue to deliver services to the public.

The Regional Co-ordinating Director, Mr. Randolph Sambo who represented the Regional Minister, in his welcome address appealed to heads of institutions to support the exercise because there are overwhelming evidence of lapses in the payroll that require urgent attention. He appealed to the heads to be vigilant when validating the electronic payment vouchers of their staff to ensure that only people working under their supervision are approved for payment at the end of the month.

The teams, spread out in all district capitals, expect to enumerate approximately 56,000 employees.