The Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has dispelled rumours that the June salaries of public servants have not been paid.
The CAGD said payments were made to the banks on Friday, June 26, 2015.
It added that any delays in accessing salaries by any public servant could be as a result of bank processes within particular banks where individual workers accessed their salaries.
In an interview, the Public Relations Officer of the CAGD, Mr Gilbert Nyalegzigbor, said processes at particular banks could result in some public servants being unable to access their salaries immediately.
He said the only issue had been the suspension of the salaries of some public servants who had not provided their social security numbers.
Mr Nyalegzigbor added that after persistent reminders in publications and circulars, the CAGD decided to suspend the salaries of the affected workers in June, this year. Statement
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has informed heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) that following a press release of June 11, 2015, the CAGD had suspended the salaries of employees without social security numbers from the June 2015 payroll.
It said the action was a follow up to an earlier one to employees with zero bank account numbers which ended in February, 2015. A statement signed by the Chief Director of the ministry, Major M. S. Tara (Rtd), also said the attention of the ministry had been drawn to a publication in the Enquirer newspaper of June 24, 2015, which reported that the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) of Ghana, a teacher union in the Ghana Education Service, planned to resist any attempt by the CAGD to suspend the salaries of employees without social security numbers from the June 2015 payroll.
The newspaper also reported that the Upper West chapter of the CCT had threatened to sue the CAGD and the Ministry of Finance, if the exercise of suspending the salaries of employees without social security numbers was carried out.
The statement said in November 2014, the Ministry of Finance and the CAGD began an exercise to clean the payroll to prevent the payment of salaries to ineligible and unauthorised persons.
In support of the payroll clean-up initiatives, government also set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on payroll with the mandate of monitoring payroll and Human Resources (HR) reforms in the public service.
The payroll clean-up initiatives covered measures on the updating of the records of employees with zero bank accounts and those without social security numbers in the payroll system.
The exercise on the zero bank accounts was successfully completed in February 2015, the statement added. Social security
It said the Ministry of Finance/CAGD had commenced another exercise to update social security information of employees on the payroll system.
In connection with that exercise, the CAGD issued a press statement on January 15, 2015 and a reminder on February 19, 2015, with a deadline of March 31, 2015, requesting employees to provide their social security information to their respective Personnel Processing Sections (PPSs) of their ministries for the updates to be done.
The statement of February 19, 2015 also indicated that the salaries of employees who did not provide their social security numbers by the end of March 2015 would be suspended permanently.
It said the deadline for the submission of the information had been extended several times and although numerous calls had been made on employees to submit their social security information, some failed to respond.
It said heads of MDAs/MMDAs had also been informed about the exercise.
It explained that the stoppage of salaries of employees as a result of failure to submit social security information did not mean that the names would be deleted from the payroll, but that the CAGD would suspend the salaries until such information was provided.
The MOF said the affected employees had to submit their social security numbers with their social security cards or statements from SSNIT to their chief directors for verification, after which their information would be updated by the Personnel Processing Sections (PPSs) of their ministries.
It asked that heads of MDAs/MMDAs and employees who need information on the total number of employees without the social security numbers should call the telephone number 0302-678801 or visit the CAGD website at www.cagd.gov.gh.
<<Print>>