...They collude with cheating public servants to falsify personal data

Public servants are cheating their way to remain at post well past their retirement ages aided by priests and pastors. According to Dr Alex Glover-Quartey, Head of the Civil Service, as many as six applications a day on average, are received at his office, seeking to change personal data, particularly date of birth.

“Since assuming office on January 16, 2003, my office has been inundated with scores of application letters from officers in the public service seeking to change the records relating to their ages and dates of birth,” Dr Glover-Quartey lamented.

Invariably, “affidavits, very new Baptismal and Birth Certificates or new personal cards” support all such applications.

Says the Head of civil Service: “Some of the documents are not authentic while others bear dates which are as recent as January 2003. Others bear dates of the 1940’s or 1950’s and yet look so new and fresh that they give reasonable cause to suspect their genuineness. What is even more worrying is that the Baptismal and Confirmation Certificates are usually signed by priests and pastors.”

In all these, said Dr Glover-Quartey, there has not been a single case where an officer is asking for a change to go on early retirement than what his or her certificate shows.

He said apart from a few pardonable errors that might have occurred at the time of the submission of personal details on first entry into the civil service at the Integrated Personal and Payroll Database (IPPD), there could be no justification for the flood of applications to his office for change of birth dates.

Says Dr Glover-Quartey: “The last exercise to computerize the personal details of civil servants was abused by some officers who took advantage to change their dates of birth. All these fictitious applications keep flooding his office because most Public Servants were not prepared for retirement in terms of their own accommodation and what to do to generate income for their sustenance when they leave office.

Acknowledging the importance of preparing civil servants for retirement, Dr Glover-Quartey said his office would be running training programmes in the near future to empower civil servants to prepare for retirement.

“I will be running training programmes to prepare civil servants on how to invest for the future to acquire their own accommodation and investment returns that will yield enough returns to take care of themselves and their wards in retirement. It is only proper that having served their country so well, civil servants are given some hope to enable them retire honourably and not become destitute in society.

Until then, cheating civil servants are in for a rude shock. The new boss might not entertain applications altering personal data. Dr. Glover-Quartey has written to chief Directors, Regional Co-Ordinating Directors, Heads of Departments, Agencies and all other sectors in the Public Service drawing attention to the fictitious nature of some of the claims with a clear message that amendments to personal data might no longer be entertained.

In a strongly worded circular dated April 10, 2003, the Head of the Civil Service asked the recipients “to take note and inform their staff about this new directive that henceforth such applications to his office will no longer be entertained.”