The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in collaboration with the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) on Monday started the Biometric Registration of active staff of Government employees in the Central Region.

The registration exercise, which would take 17 days to complete, starts from 11th to 27th June, and would be conducted in all the seventeen districts of the region to cover all on government active payroll including, subvented agencies that receive their salary through CAGD.

A source from the CAGD told the GNA in Cape Coast that the exercise formed part of the processes by government through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the CAGD to rid the payroll of ‘Ghost Names‘ and also create transparency in the government financial data.

The exercise is also geared towards the collation of an accurate data on Public Sector employees, who are on the Controller and Accounted General’s Department Pensioner’s payroll. Those who would fail to register would have their names expunged from the payroll.

It would be recalled that in July last year, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, announced government’s decision to embark on a Biometric registration of all workers on government payroll.

The Minister noted that public sector wage bills had been rising sharply over the past years in relation to the Gross Domestic production (GDP) and expenditure, which could not be attributed to wages or salary increases.

Many of the workers the GNA spoke to, expressed concern about the low publicity on the exercise and stressed that everything should be done to enable all active staff of government to be registered.**