Ho, Feb. 29, GNA - New procedures at the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) to transmit administrative and budgetary grants to district assemblies through courier and other money transfer services is saving the nation around GHc20 million cedis yearly. In the past, accounting officers from the districts and departments all over the country clustered at the department in Accra every month at high cost to the state to process and collect those payments. Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie, Controller and Accountant-General, addressing a forum of public servants in Ho on Thursday, said this time the advice for such payments was dispatched to the regions. The regions in turn distribute them to the districts and departments, thus cancelling the overnight stay and travelling overheads borne by the state.

He said charges for the transfer services, which were often fluid, were far cheaper and cost effective.

The Ho forum is the second of regional forums being held throughout the country for public servants and pensioners to explain the workings of the Accountant General's Department and also seek views to improve work at the department.

"These meetings would break the communication gap between the CAGD and the public," Mr Sottie told the workers, many of whose problems include unexplained deductions from their pay, non-payment of increments and late payment of salaries.

Mr Sottie said the department's programme of pay software adjustment had brought up challenges, especially when its programme of work was disturbed by labour agitation.

He said the switch from the Integrated Personal Payroll Data (IPPD) 1 to IPPD 2 was almost complete and that fine-tuning was being done for the new programme to meet the data demands that would make pay transactions better.

Mr Sottie said some of the delays and distortions were caused by wrong data provided by personnel offices of the departments. He said if a worker's age suggested that he was a year old when he was employed the system, programmed that people in Ghana could only be employed if they were 18 years or above, would reject it. Mr Sottie said the system was sensitive and would reject illogical data and would also take back all overpayments at once. Workers representatives from the northern sector of the Volta Region attended the forum.