Some junior doctors duped gov’t in the past – Dep health minister

Deputy Health Minister Dr. Victor Bampoe has explained that salaries of junior doctors have delayed because government is implementing measures to rid their pay structure of fraud.

According to him, there are experiences in the past where government has had to pay some junior doctors more than the actual months they worked for.

“In the past people use to get onto the payroll afterwards, they call the authority for financial clearance; so you write and say 15 people have qualified as doctors and we need to put them on the payroll.

“There are certain bureaucratic processes so by the time they are put on the payroll, some will say they have worked for a year when in reality they have done six months so government realised that a lot of money was being paid to ghost names.

"A lot of monies were being paid for sometimes people not working for the period of time and there was also collusion between some HR practitioners and some health workers,” he told Kafui Dey on the Morning Starr Tuesday morning.

He said the development triggered an overhaul of the system by the finance ministry which has led to the delay in their payment.

He noted, however, that all arrears of the House officers will be paid in due time.

Junior doctors across the country about three weeks ago embarked on a strike over their unpaid salaries, but the house officers at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi have resumed work after receiving firm assurance that their salaries would be paid.