Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo on Monday said the government was in serious discussions with the Department of International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom for technical assistance to find a lasting solution to the problem of "ghost" names on public service payroll.

He said a series of measures aimed at ensuring a sound public financial management of the economy were put in place to eliminate "ghost" names about three months ago.

"In a country where unemployment is one of the many socio-economic problems facing the managers of the economy, a national canker such as the incidence of "ghost" names on the payroll is a major issue which has to be tackled seriously," he said in a statement issued in Accra.

The minister said "ghost" names came as a result of delay in deleting the names of workers who had resigned, been dismissed, retired, vacated their post or were dead.

"Thus the period between the reporting and deletion of the record could still lead to the presence of 'ghosts'".

Mr Osafo-Maafo said an audit review had found out that it took an average of about 54 months to delete the name of a retired person from the payroll.

He said when someone was first appointed; it took a long time for the salary to be paid. "If such a person who decides not to take an appointment but does not inform the department, it leads to a 'ghost' name on the payroll by the time the system starts paying." He said study leave without pay and employee sanctions also affected employee status and remuneration.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said the modus operandi of the perpetrators of these economic crimes in certain cases involved deliberately inserting names of non-existing workers on payrolls and salaries, which illegally accrued and diverted to specific bank accounts for accomplices to share.

One other way, he said, was to deliberately inflate salaries or overtime allowances of some officers or faking higher grades for them on input forms. The difference in pay was then shared with account officers.

Such monies were siphoned by officials who were responsible for managing payrolls with active assistance of treasury officers in the districts, regional offices and Head Office at the Controller and Accountant-General's department responsible for the preparation and processing of the payrolls.

"It is the intention of the Ministry of Finance to completely eliminate this phenomenon from the public payroll system."

The Minister said all heads of departments had been charged to be personally responsible to thoroughly scrutinise all payrolls under their charge and certify the existence of all workers listed as well as the genuineness of their grades, salaries and levels in their respective departments and agencies.

"The Auditor-general has been requested to start auditing every payroll beginning with the last three months (August, September, October) so that the 'ghost' names syndrome with its attendant adverse effect on unemployment, over-expenditure, waste and unbridled stealing from the national coffers will be completely eliminated."