Nature Of Ghana's Financial Management To Blame For Double Salaries

A public policy expert is blaming the lack of a database for public servants as the reason some John Mahama appointees received double salaries.

Prof. Justice Bawole believes the existence of a system which captures data of all government workers, would easily detect such payments once the details appear in multiples.

“I think the financial management architecture is slightly problematic and that is what has occasioned this,” the Head of the Department of Public Administration and Health Service Management at the University of Ghana Business School, stated on Joy FM Wednesday.

His comments follow ongoing investigations by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) into alleged double salary payments to a number of appointees of the former government. This involved Members of Parliament who were appointed either as ministers or deputy ministers.

Read: 3 ex-gov't officials cautioned for stealing; others wait their turn

Minority Leader, Haruna Idrisu
He said it is possible for some government workers to be paid twice without they knowing because some draw their salaries directly on the accounts of the institutions that engaged them while others are paid through the Accountant General's Department.

He was, however, surprised that the former appointees went ahead to spend the monies without finding out from the authorities the source of the payments.

"So you get money in your account you don’t know where it is coming from and you don’t find out [from the source] and you go ahead and spend that money? I think this is the problem we need to deal with otherwise we would get to that point where everybody would just do things and get away [with them]."

It is only when the systems are synchronised, that this situation can be detected, Prof. Bawole noted.

“…we need to build a database of government employees so that if I get a request to pay somebody I should be able to check if that person is already not on the payroll system,” he told host of the super Morning show, Daniel Dadzie.

Prof. Bawole also described as improper for the emoluments of Article 71 office holders to be determined only when they finish their term of office before their accounts are balanced, a justification many of the named former appointees have stated in their defence.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for somebody to do his work for four years, [and] finish before we determine how much that person is worth and should be paid. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense,” he said.

A system solution he added is to “let Parliamentarians know [that] this is how much you would be paid. So that tells us right from the beginning so we don’t wait till four years” before their accounts are rationalised.