A total of 1,052 out of 5,022 staff on the government payroll of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) cannot be identified in a recent headcount conducted by the hospital.

The results of the headcount revealed that about 490 staff of the hospital were yet to be counted from institutions within the Korle-Bu compound although the staff of those institutions had over the years been counted as staff of Korle-Bu.

The findings also revealed that there were staff who had passed away, some dismissed while some had vacated their posts, but their names still appear on the payroll.

Out of the total number of staff at the KBTH, 4,252 staff of the hospital were on the government payroll while 347 were on the hospital’s Internally Generated Funds (IGF) consisting of 423 newly employed nurses.

The headcount, necessitated by the hospital’s desire to protect the public purse, disclosed that out of the 4,252 staff on the government payroll, only 2,752 personally appeared and checked their names during the headcount exercise.

With those on the IGF payroll, 287 out of a total of 347 personally checked their names, leaving 60 staff who have not been counted. Out of the 423 newly-employed nurses, 339 presented themselves for the count leaving 84 who did not show up.

Rev. Albert Botchway, acting Chief Executive Office of the hospital, addressing a press conference in Accra, expressed worry over the issue indicating that further investigations would be carried to come out with reasons for such an occurrence.

Deletion Of Names

Rev. Botchway indicated that a residual list on the government payroll that contains the 1,052 names that could not be checked would be thoroughly scrutinised by the team to find out whether they were real or ghost names.

“It will constitute a major drain on the state coffers if indeed, these are ghost names,” he said.

He said the hospital would publish the list in the media and on the hospital’s website (www.kbth.gov.gh) for a period of one week after which bearers of the names who failed or refused to report at the Chief Executive’s Office, would have their names deleted from the government payroll.

He said the hospital embarked on the head counting exercise following the hospital’s efforts to pay the salaries of newly employed nurses which had been outstanding for 22 months.

Rev. Botchway said the hospital’s management was initially hopeful that the normal processes for placing newly employed staff on the government payroll would have materialised within the regulated time frame.

However, he said the issue unfortunately dragged on for quite a long time which became a concern when more than 30 newly-employed nurses did not pick up their pay cheques.

The Board, Management and the Minister of Health became interested and decided to probe further into the discrepancies in the figures presented for payment and the actual number of new nurses, who picked up their cheques after Korle-Bu was mandated to start paying them from its IGF.

“It was this that led to the formation of the joint team which conducted the headcount involving the two main categories of staff – those on the government payroll and those on IGF,” he stated.

E-paying

According to the acting CEO of KBTH, in order to find a lasting and realistic solution to the problems with the hospital’s payroll, the Ministry of Health and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department will be rolling out an electronic payroll (e-payroll) management system in the hospital.

He said with the e-payroll, Korle-Bu would be actively involved in managing its own payroll because it would help eliminate the problems associated with the payroll, which is currently being managed.

“With the e-payroll, there will be several in-built levels of validations by supervisors, heads of Department/Unit and Directors and this will make it extremely difficult for anyone who is not working for the Hospital to be on its payroll,” he noted.