Retired public servants to continue receive salaries from Accountant General

Many public servants who either resigned or retired from the public service within the last two years continue to receive their monthly salaries from the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD).

In most cases, the heads of department where the former public servants worked, notified the CAGD of the resignation or retirement of the staff.

This came to light in a survey conducted by the Ghana News Agency in some Departments in the Eastern Region recently.

Reacting to the outcome of the survey, the Eastern Regional Director of CAGD, Mr Isaac K. Asare, explained that many staff who had left the public service still had their names on the government’s pay roll because in some cases, the letters written by their departmental heads to the CAGD never got to the desk officers.

He said in the case of the Region, the letters should have been handed over to the officer in-charge of salaries in the Region who had the authority to effect any changes.

Mr Asare said it was the responsibility of the heads of department to first write to the banks of the officers who had left the public service to advice them to stop paying salaries to the affected staff and to pay it back to the suspense account of the CAGD.

He said to help resolve the situation, he had initiated what he termed a “call pay role clinic” to help track the movement of letters of resignation or retirement of public servants in the Region to Accra to ensure that the letters got to the right officials.

In 2001 and 2009, Government announced various measures to help clear the pay roll of people who were no longer in the public service but continued to collect salaries under “ghost names”.  However, after the two exercises the ghost names were yet to be made public.

Source: GNA