The Controller and Accountant Generals Department (CAGD) is to roll out a nationwide electronic salary payment voucher (E-SPV) for all government employees by the end of June, this year.

It is part of the drive to inject sanity and tackle the challenges in the manual payroll system to minimize irregularities and unauthorized payments.

Mr. James Ntim Amponsah, Deputy Controller in-charge of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) said it had already been piloted at its headquarters and the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and would be replicated in the Greater Accra Region by the end of this month.

He was speaking at a sensitization workshop held in Kumasi for finance officers, auditors, heads of department and human resource managers of metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDA), government ministries, and agencies, in the Ashanti Region.

Mr Amponsah said the new system was being introduced against the backdrop of growing concerns on the high public wage bill.

He said when fully operational, certification of the payroll would be a pre-condition for payment of staff of Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the MMDAs.

Mr Amponsah said timelines would be set for certification of the payment vouchers every month, and that failure by any head of department to certify the vouchers before the deadline would imply that the staff under the defaulting management unit would not be paid until these were validated.

He therefore urged heads of departments to take ownership of payrolls and take steps to validate them on time. They should do everything to make sure that only employees belonging to their units were paid.

Mr Amponsah advised employees who might have challenges on their salaries as a result of the implementation of the new system to contact the Department to get them corrected.