Ghana Rolls Out E-Salary Voucher

Date published: February 26, 2014
 
 
THE eagerly-anticipated Electronic Salary Payment Voucher (E-SPV) will replace the manual payment voucher system in July this year, Ghana's Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD), announced.

The system would be rolled out nationwide while the full roll out of the system in Greater-Accra Region would be completed in March this year.

This follows the piloting of the system at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the CAGD. The E-SPV is an electronic version of the manual salary payment voucher that validates by using the internet.

According to officials of the CAGD, the time line set for the validation and certification of the payment voucher is 48 hours, after data is made available on the system.

The Acting Controller and Accountant General, Grace Francisca Adzroe, explained that the new payment voucher would help eliminate the systematic inefficiencies and leakages in the payroll system.

According to her, the E-SPV was introduced following concerns regarding the high wage bill of public servants, and the commitment by government to have a robust payroll system that would ensure effective and efficient management of the payroll cost, by eliminating unauthorized payments.

When the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA's) are rolled onto the E-SPV system, the certification of the payroll would be a pre-condition for payment of staff of a particular management unit, she noted.

Adzroe noted that the policy on E-SPV was that the payment vouchers should be validated and certified before salaries are paid and this policy is in line with the Regulation 306 of the Financial Administration Regulation, 2004 (LI 1802) which requires heads of management units to examine and certify the payment vouchers of his or her unit to ensure the integrity of the payroll data.

She therefore warned that in line with the policy, any head of department who failed to certify the E-SPV before the deadline, would take responsibility for the non-payment of salary of staff of the particular management unit.

She said affected staff would only be paid the following month when the certification has been made.

'To achieve the objectives of the E-SPV, I wish to entreat all heads of departments to take ownership of their payrolls using the system and take steps to validate the payroll every month and on time,' she advised.

The Deputy Controller and Accountant General in charge of payroll, Wisdom Messan, noted that the E-SPV was primarily an HR system.

As such, he said his organisation was in a better position to determine who should be on the payroll. ItNewsGhana.com