An internal audit undertaken by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has revealed that some 148,000 workers on the government’s payroll have identifications which do not match any biometric credentials at the National Identification Authority (NIA).
This staggering 148,000 figure is out of a total of 602,000 workers on the payroll of the Controller and Accountant General.
The Vice President, Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia, who revealed this, also said some 533 with multiple identities had been found on government payroll after the audit.
Dr. Bawumia made this known on Tuesday, August 16, 2022, when he was addressing the 2022 Internal Audit Agency Conference in Accra.
“An exercise just completed last week by the Controller and Accountant General Department shows that 533 people on the CAGD have multiple identities in the CAGD database,” Dr. Bawumia revealed.
“There are also 148,060 employees out of 601,948 with biometrics that did not match anyone on the National Identification Register (i.e. no Ghana Card).”
The Vice President noted that in all cases of multiple identities, the employees had more than one CAGD account with different employee numbers, with some having as much as three.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bawumia indicated that the authorities would check the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) database to see if their biometrics could be matched, adding swiftly that: “It is also possible that some of those with matching biometrics may also have multiple employee accounts.”
Vice President Bawumia, who was not pleased with the level of losses due to corruption, charged the various prosecuting agencies to begin the process of prosecuting persons involved in such criminal activities.
According to him, as part of the government’s quest to achieve fiscal consolidation, many steps had been taken, including improving revenue mobilisation and curbing wastages in the public sector by using digitisation.
ROLE OF INTERNAL AUDITORS
The Vice President, who was speaking on the theme of the Conference, “Injecting Fiscal Discipline in Resource Mobilisation and Utilisation for Sustainable Development,” underscored the significance of internal auditors in the quest to improve financial mobilisation and ensure fiscal discipline, adding that they should be seen as major stakeholders in the process.
He opined that the theme needed to be complete with internal auditors across the board, who should be seen as stakeholders in ensuring that fiscal discipline measures were practically implemented across the public sector.
According to him, the role of internal auditors as gate keepers of financial discipline with covered entities cannot be over-emphasised.
He asserted that the government pursues fiscal discipline to achieve fiscal consolidation, stressing that the preventive role of internal auditors across the public sector enhances fiscal discipline and had saved the nation millions of cedis.
RESTRUCTURING OF THE AUDIT SERVICE
The Vice President said that by their advice and vigilance, public sector waste and abuses had been minimised, and annual infractions reported by the Auditor-General had seen some level of decline between 2019 and 2020.
He, therefore, reiterated the government’s commitment to the restructuring of the internal audit service and repositioning public sector internal audit in Ghana as an important public financial management institution. This, he explained, will put public officers on their toes towards observing fiscal discipline in spending public funds.
He said: “Going forward, ladies and gentlemen, to effectively utilize internal audit resources in the country, all internal auditors will be brought under the management, administrative, technical control, and supervision of the new Internal Audit Service (IAS).”
ECONOMY REVITALISATION
In the quest to revitalise the economy following the recent downturn as a result of global factors, Dr. Bawumia called for the need for increased revenue mobilization and prudent expenditure and highlighted steps the government has taken to achieve that.
He noted that a key focus of the 2022 budget is fiscal consolidation to enhance debt and fiscal sustainability as we implement our economic revitalization and transformation programme to better the lives of Ghanaians.
“These measures, which include expenditure validation and revenue enhancement measures, are to reposition the Ghana economy for accelerated growth. Indeed, implementation of the measures highlighted in the 2022 budget will lead to significant fiscal adjustment from a projected fiscal deficit, including energy IPP payments and financial sector clean-up costs, of 12.1% of GDP in 2021 to 7.4% in 2022, representing an adjustment of 4.7 percentage points in just one year.”
The Vice President added that the Ministry of Finance has strengthened its expenditure monitoring systems and processes to ensure effective implementation of these measures.
“For instance, Government called for efficient use of energy resources. In line with this, fuel coupon allocations to all political appointees and Heads of government institutions, including SoEs are to be cut by 50% effective 1st April this year,” he added.
