WE'LL PAY SALARIES PROMPTLY (Page 3)

Story: Tim Dzamboe, Ho

THE Controller and Accountant-General, Mr Christian Sottie, has assured workers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of a reliable and worthy system for prompt payment of salaries.
He, however, noted that the department was working under difficult conditions, including unexpected delays at the banks, which also delayed the payment of pensions.
Mr Sottie told a forum of workers and pensioners in the southern sector of the Volta Region at Denu at the weekend that it was not a deliberate action by the department to delay salaries and other emoluments to workers.
Some of the conditions, he said, were power outages, defects in software, strikes and the inability of the MDAs to present relevant inputs of their workers to the central system on time.
He called on clients of the Controller and Accountant-General Department (CAGD) to furnish the department with any anomalies they detected in their salaries for prompt correction.
The Accountant-General disclosed that the omission of names from payrolls, reduction of salaries, and dislocation of salaries to banks had been the major complaints of workers and said new structures had been established at the headquarters to handle all problems.
To this end, a help desk and a call centre with a toll free centre had been set up, adding that aggrieved workers could call telephone numbers 021678801 and 021678805 for assistance.
He, however, noted that the major grievances came from the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service, because of the absence of a client service unit at those places.
Mr Sottie warned those who were mistakenly paid far above their salaries and thought it was a windfall to report immediately to the CAGD for mutual negotiation for redress, otherwise the system would reclaim the loss without recourse to the beneficiaries.
He also denied claims that teachers who were members of the National Association Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) who went on strike were paid their salaries in some regions.
The Accountant-General, however, urged workers of the MDAs and allied clients of the CAGD to report the conduct of indisciplined officers in order to check any form of disillusionment among workers.
He also advised workers to protect their payslips to avoid misuse by miscreants for guaranteeing for purchases they had not made.
In his remarks, the Chief of Avenorpedo, Torgbui Doklo Akumsah, said the intervention of the Accountant-General had set the minds of workers at rest and said subsequent fora would clear all doubts on the operations of the CAGD.
He commended Mr Sottie for his practicality in explaining issues to workers and suggested that such a forum should be organised at least twice a year.