Ghana plans to use a biometric payroll to pay public sector workers in a bid to eliminate ‘ghost workers.’
This follows the completion of the biometric payroll registration exercise in six of the country's regions.
The biometric registration of public sector workers was completed in the greater Accra, Ashanti, eastern, central, Volta and western regions.
Ghana’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning said, “The biometric payroll data will be used to effect salary payments as soon as a similar exercise is completed in four other regions in the country by the end of July 2012.”
Abdul Hakim Ahmed, media liaison, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, said a similar exercise was completed for pensioners in January 2012, with the resultant database used to effect pension payments since March 2012.
He said a mop-up exercise was ongoing to capture genuine pensioners who were inadvertently not captured during the exercise.
‘Ghost names’ on Ghana’s payrolls have been a major concern for present and successive governments and can be traced back to the days of Ghana’s independence.
Kwabena Duffour, Ghana’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning recently admitted that the rising public sector wage bill posed a major threat to current economic stability.
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