CABINET has given approval for the procurement and installation of a new software at the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) to facilitate the payment of salaries to workers on government payroll.
The measure is to help make the processing and payment of workers’ salaries more effective to avoid the frustrations the department and public servants go through in dealing with payrolls.
The Controller and Accountant-General, Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie, made this known in Tamale and explained that the Integrated Personnel Payroll Database II (IPPD II) system currently being used by his outfit to effect the payment of the salaries of workers and pensioners was fraught with many problems.
Mr Sottie was speaking at a workers’ forum as part of his two-day tour of the Northern Region. The forum was organised by the department to provide an avenue for it to explain to workers issues regarding its operations.
It is envisaged that such forums will ultimately help to bridge the communication gap between the department and workers, as well as reduce speculations regarding the processing and payment of salaries.
“The IPPD II runs on an Oracle application software which is a modern and world-wide acclaimed software for payroll delivery but the system encountered problems such as wrongful deductions and outstanding promotional arrears,” Mr Sottie stated.
He, however, indicated that the CAGD might go in for a Ghanaian software that had been tried and tested, with the ultimate goal of effecting workers’ payment without problems.
Mr Sottie noted that overpayment of loan recovery, tax in arrears and, Ghana Medical Association dues, third party deductions and delay in salaries were the other challenges facing the department in its quest to offer good service delivery to workers.
He stated that “the payment of salaries is effected based on inputs made onto the payroll system by the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). Therefore, it is the MDAs that decide who should be paid or not”.
According to him, “the stoppage of the October 2006 salary for some teachers, for instance, was effected based on a directive from the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council”.
Mr Sottie, therefore, entreated workers and pensioners to see the department as a partner and co-operate with it through regular feedback, adding that “a payroll desk with contact line 021-678801 has been established to promptly assist employees with problems”.
Some of the workers at the forum raised a number of issues, including impersonation, wrongful deductions and the perceived lukewarm attitude towards the prompt payment of workers’ salaries by the CAGD.
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