Common financial system for government organisations

Thursday, April 10, 2008 (Daily Graphic Pg 49)
Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
THE Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) is in the process of placing all government organisations on a common financial system for payment of salaries and related allowances.
The move is to ensure accountability and transparency in the administration of government finances in the area of wages, salaries and related payments.
So far 13 out of a total of about 114 subvented organisations who are self-accounting, have been integrated onto the government payroll.
The organisations include the Pharmacy Council, the Driver and Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Ghana Law Reform, the Ghana Export Promotion Council, the Ghana Veterinary Council, the Ghana Technical Training Centre and the National Symphony Orchestra.
The rest are the State Enterprises Commission, the Saint John’s Ambulance, the Central Region Development Commission, the National Board for Small-Scale Industries, the Prices and Incomes Board and the National Sports Council.
Information gathered at the Payroll Unit of the CAGD indicates that about 146 government organisations made of up ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are currently on the government pay roll.
The Controller and Accountant General, Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie told the Daily Graphic in Accra that it was important for all government organisations to be put under one system to ensure effective monitoring.
He noted that responsibility lay in the hands of the CAGD, which is mandated to receive all monies meant for the government and also to make all payments on behalf of the government.
He said to get things right, a team of consultants were currently studying the different software being used by the individual subvented organisations and their existing staff data to determine how they could be linked to the national system.
Mr Sottie added that to avoid complication in the process, the affected organisations would gradually be added onto the list as and when they were cleared.
Some of the subvented organisations yet to be migrated on the payroll are the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), the Ghana Statistical Service, National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the Electoral Commission (EC), the public universities and the polytechnics.
Throwing more light on the issue, the Director in charge of Payroll at the CAGD, Mr Daniel Y. Domelevo, said the Financial Administration Act of 2003, (Act 654) mandated the Controller and Accountant General “to receive, disburse and provide secure custody for the monies payable into the Consolidated Fund”.
He added that the Financial Administration Regulation 294 also stated that “It is the Controller and Accountant General who provides the procedures to be followed in the payment of salaries, wages and related allowances.”
He said in addition to that, Regulation 295 also stated that “any other system used in the payment of the public servant salary shall be approved by Controller and Accountant General”, adding that since the Controller had the authority to permit any organisation to use a particular system to pay its staff, the officer could also demand that the system was changed in the best interest of the country.
Mr Domelevo stressed that it was not the desire of the CAGD to create problems for any organisation hence the change and pointed out that it was intended to ensure effective monitoring.
He explained that looking at the numbers involved and the sizes of some of the organisations, not all of them would be linked directly to the national system and said that organisations with large staff size may be allowed to continue to use their individual software but there would be measures to monitor their payment system.
He, therefore, appealed to all the affected organisations to co-operate with the department to ensure smooth transfer on their staff list when the need arose.