More than 575 students nationwide have been employed by the Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD) to gather data on the existence of workers and pensioners on the government payroll system. The students drawn from the country’s tertiary and second-cycle institutions have been employed on a temporary basis for the next two months.

The exercise initiated by the exercise by the Controller and Accountant General, Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie, to confirm government employees and pensioners will cost the country more than 2 billion cedis for the two month period.

According to Mr Sottie, 1.7 billion cedis will be spent on the allowances of the student-employees while the remaining 300 million cedis have been earmarked for their transportation and other resources to be used for the exercise.

It is expected that the number of students currently engaged in the increased to 1,000 next year. Mr Sottie explained that the government is moving from the old Integrated Personal Payroll Data (IPPD1) to a new payroll system (IPPD2) and this is an opportune time to confirm information on workers and pensioners to ensure there are no “ghost names” in the new system.

Mr Sottie said pensioners would receive an identification card. The government needs to confirm “pensioners are people who are supposed to be paid and that they are not people impersonating the dead,” Sottie said. The information to be provided by the student-employees will be crosschecked with data on the CAGD database to enable the Department to know the reality of beneficiaries on the payroll system.

“Currently, we have not yet identified any ghost name on the government payroll. However, because we will be running a new payroll system by September this year, the exercise will help the Department know if the information we are transferring is the correct information. “The nature of their (students) job is to move from house to house as well as workplaces nationwide to identify workers and pensioners personally in an attempt to ensure that payments to people on payroll reach the intended beneficiaries”, he said.

The Controller and Accountant General receive all public and trust monies, provide secure custody of the public trust monies and makes disbursements on behalf of government.

When the new IPPD2 system, developed by US-based Oracle Corporation, is effected all government subvented institutions like the universities and research organizations, which run their own payroll system, will be switched to the new system to give the Accountant General total control over the salary structure.

“We applied the new system in the restructuring of the health workers salaries and over 3250 ghost names were identified”, he said.

Rebecca Adofo, a 23 year old secondary school graduate who will be working in Accra, said both the government and the students will benefit. “We (the students) are going to gain some knowledge and it will help the government manipulate its policy to govern the country”, she said.