C&AG: All valid omissions on health payroll have been processed

Accra, Aug. 14, GNA 96 All valid omissions on the Health Sector payroll submitted to the Controller and Accountant-General (C&AG) have been processed for inclusion in the August payroll.

A circular signed by Mr Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, Deputy Controller & Accountant General, Financial Management Services, said the total number of Health Sector employees paid in July was 42,485.

It said a total of 4,428 additions were made to the payroll in July, including new entrants and omissions from the June payroll. The statement said there were 967 more employees that had been added to the health payroll since the July payroll and would be processed during the August payroll.

The statement said the Department's attention had been drawn to payroll issues for the Health Sector for July including omissions from July payroll, salary changes and overpayment recovery. On salary changes, the Department said net pay was not the same as gross salaries.

"A closer look at pay slips will adequately explain the differences between the net pay received and the actual (gross) salaries paid."

It said differences between June and July gross salaries of employees, which fell as a result of rent deduction, were legitimate. It said in July, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, following recommendations of a Committee set up by the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing to address differential rent deductions instructed the C&AG to effect 16 per cent rent deduction (basic salary) from all public service employees living in Government accommodation and this was effected.

The statement said 1,386 re-grading transactions were submitted for July processing. Of this number, 475 were successfully updated in time for the July payroll while the remaining transactions had been applied for the August payroll.

On overpayment recovery, the statement said in the June payroll, a group of House Officers had salary arrears from 2005 manually computed and processed on IPPD2. This is in addition to the regular salary arrears computed as per the new salary adjustments.

The statement said during the July payroll processing, the system recognised the manually computed salary arrears as overpayments made in June and, therefore, automatically recovered the perceived overpayments. Consequently, 53 House Officers in this lot received zero net pay. In addition, 90 House Officers received reduced net pay.

"The anomalies have been identified and in resolving this issue in the next payroll run, a system's arrears programme has been devised.

"This will make the system recognise the manually-calculated salary arrears as legitimate and recalculation done automatically to refund the over-payment recovery done in July."

The statement said in order to avert any delays in the processing of omitted names; re-grading and misdirection of bank accounts all inputs must be submitted by the Human Resource Managers or Accountants of the Ghana Health Service to the Head, Payroll Processing Division of the Treasury Headquarters. It added that any input sent to consultants or third parties would not be tolerated.