Massive wipe up of payroll fraud starting 17 July 2018 by Audit service

A nationwide wipe-up on payroll fraud is set to begin this week and is expected to force all civil servants to justify their employment status.

This is government radical steps to remove ghost names from the country’s payroll.

The Auditor General’s Department is teaming up with the Special Prosecutor to enforce the measure which starts in the Central Region from the July 17.

All civil servants in the region will have a 10-day window to produce evidence of their employment and those who cannot do so will face prosecution.

Auditor General, Daniel Domelovo, gave details of the plan when he spoke at a news conference held jointly with the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu in Accra Wednesday.

“Once you are the head of a government entity - a school, hospital, department or a ministry – you have a duty to ensure that it is only people who are working for you who are on the payroll.

“The regulation continues to say that immediately one of your employees leave your employment, you are supposed to first notify the Accountants General’s department, Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) of the Ministry where the person is working for them to stop the salary,” he added.

He said managers are fully aware that the information to IPPD will not get to the Ministry on time so they are obligated to write to the bankers of the employees to stop the salary.

“People don’t do this so when we come for audit all they do is show us a letter they have sent to the IPPD, but the law did not say that. So, we will need evidence from any manager to show the steps they took,” he said.

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