The auditor is not

responsible for the

proliferation of
Ghost names in the
payroll system.
The auditor facilitates the payment of salaries
and per its duties they include:
The controller and accountant general is partly to blame for the proliferation of the employment records
with Ghost names.

This is because the procedure involved in processing employees gives the CAGD the role as a facilitator.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CAGD IS THE FOLLOWING:

 Receive all Public and Trust monies payable into the Consolidated Fund(done through its
staff stationed in all government departments including the revenue collecting ones)
 Provide secure custody of Public and Trust monies (with the support of the Ministry of
Finance and Bank of Ghana)
 Make disbursements on behalf of the Government(includes the payment of monthly
salaries to government employees inactive service; pension gratuity and monthly pension
payment to those on retirement; and releases of funds to prosecute government projects
and development throughout the country)
 Pay all Government Workers’ wages, salaries and allowances;
 Process and pay all Pension gratuity for the Civil Service;
 Establish, on behalf of government, such accounts with the Bank of Ghana and its agents
for the deposit of Public and Trust monies;
 Be solely responsible for the opening of bank accounts for any government department;
 Keep, prepare, render and publish financial statements on the Consolidated Fund of
Ghana both monthly and annually (not later than three months after the end of the
financial year. The Auditor General is furnished with the necessary financial statements
for his scrutiny and onward transmission to parliament and eventual gazetting)
 Approve  accounting instructions for Government Departments;
 Promote the development of efficient accounting systems in all Government
Departments.

The finance ministry pays the funds into a consolidated account, which is then appropriated among the
list of employees given. The list of employees received from the MDA is validated employee lists which
are then forward to the Auditor General for approval.

The CAGD uses only the validated information from E-SPV system to run the payroll for the month.

The objective of issuing these guidelines is to provide better understanding of payroll processes to
inform public discussion on the subject matter.

1. Procedure to follow and documentations required in processing the salaries of newly employed
workers are as follows:

a. MDAs should obtain financial Clearance from the Ministry of Finance before recruitment. The financial
clearance and appointment letters, together with other relevant documents are sent to the Personnel
Processing Sections (or IPPD offices), which are located at the Headquarters of supervising Ministries.
The PPS enters the personnel data of the employees onto the payroll system.
b. After the employees’ information is captured onto the payroll system, staffs IDs are automatically
generated for each employee. Employees obtain an introductory letter from their heads of departments
and attach their staff IDs and other relevant documents to the Ministry of Finance for Biometric
Registration.

c. On monthly basis, the Ministry of Finance forwards, online, to the CAGD the biometric data of
employees they have captured for the final processing and payment of the salaries.

Please note that without completing the above processes, the CAGD will be unable to process the salary
for new employees.

2. Processing of promotions and upgrading of employees.

Procedures to follow and documentations required in processing promotions or upgrading of employees

are as follows:

a. MDA s should forward the promotion on upgrading letters together with relevant documents to their
PPSs (or IPPD offices) located at the Headquarters of their supervising Ministries. The PPSs enter the
promotion or upgrading information of the employees onto the payroll system and send copies of all the
documents to the CAGD. The CAGD validates the promotion or upgrading information on the payroll
system before final processing and payment.

3. Validation through the E-SPV

The CAGD every month forwards the test payroll electronically (through the E-SPV system) to head of
management units to validate and certify the staff to be paid for a particular month.

a. Heads of management units are given 48 hours to complete the validation process and send feedback
to the CAGD for the payroll run

b. If a head of management unit does not validate the payroll after 48 hours period the names of
employees under that management units would not be included in the payroll for the month and
therefore would not be paid for that month.

c. Staff can only be paid after the heads of management units validate their names on the payment
vouchers through the E-SPV system.

d. The E-SPV system is currently operational in 6 regions, namely Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo,
Northern, Upper East, and Upper West Regions.

e. The roll out of the E-SPV system to all regions in the country is expected to be completed by the end
of September, 2015 the statement said.

4. Payment of salary arrears

Policies regarding the payment of salary arrears for promotions, new entrants, and reactivation are to
limit the initial payment to 3 months. Salary arrears beyond three months are paid by the CAGD only
after auditing by the Auditor General.

The CAGD said employees should contact their Human Resource officers and complete the salary arrears
application forms and forward to the Ministry of Finance through their supervising Ministries.
The controller and accountant generals’ duty is to oversee the payment of all public service workers and
manage their funds.

Ghost names are accounts not directly linked to specific employees or linked to inactive (deceased)
employees yet payment passes through such account and is received by unworthy recipients for
unaccounted work done.

The CAGD has migrated from the manual payment to the electronic payment system to eliminate the
incidence of Ghost name occurring

There are no proper checks to ensure

Workers absence at posts are accounted for

Workers on transfer have their old payment arrangement terminated

Workers deceased are immediately terminated from the payroll system

Workers who stop working or are sacked or dismissed are properly terminated from the systems.

Implementation of the electronic system eliminated 3,179 ghost names of public institutions in Accra for
this year between April- June

Current steps include

All accounts shall be linked to bank account so the deceased is the owner of the account thus upon its
death the bank informs CAGD of monies unaccounted for

Banks will also be charged with the duty of informing CAGD on fraudulent or suspicious payments

Salary arrears that need to be paid beyond 3 months arrears would need validation by the audit service
to check fraud and reduce budgetary shocks.

The use of Biometric data acquired from E-zwich to eliminate double accounts for single individuals and
duplications in database.

Engaging heads of department at MDAs to help weed out ghost names

To quicken termination process upon notification of death or dismissed (inactive) staff to avoid
unnecessary payments

The law requires that an embargo be placed on staff who vacate post for more than 40 days.