Accountant General explains confusion

...in payment of salaries of Health Workers
Accra, Aug. 14, GNA 96 The Controller and Accountant General has explained the cause of non-payment and under payment of salaries of some Health Workers for July 2006.

A statement Mr Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, Deputy Controller and Accountant General Financial Management Services, signed on Monday attributed the discrepancies to computer misreading.

It said: "In the June payroll, a group of House Officers had salary arrears from 2005, which were manually computed and processed on IPPD2. This was in addition to the regular 2006 salary arrears computed as per the new HSS salary adjustment."

The statement said during the processing of the July salary, the computer interpreted the addition as overpayment and, therefore, automatically deducted what it perceived as overpayments. Consequently, 53 House Officers were not paid any salaries while another 90 were paid less.

The statement said the mistake had been identified and the necessary steps had been taken to correct the anomaly.