CAGD builds data base for pension payments

Story: Tim Dzamboe, Ho

The Controller and Accountant General’s Department is building its own data base by scanning all documents kept by third party institutions with the view to reducing the period of confirmation for the payment of pensions from the third parties.
To this effect, the establishment list of the Office of the Head of Civil Service, teacher’s and nurses’s certificates at the national archives, teacher education division of the Ghana Education Service and the Nurses and Midwife Council respectively, will be collated to resolve all problems relating to the payment of pensions.
The Controller and Accountant General, Mr Christian Sottie announced this when he addressed some pensioner’s in the Volta Region at Ho last Friday.
It was part of a two-day working visit to address workers, pensioners and those on government payroll to clear misconceptions on the work of the department as well as to educate the public on what steps to take to address any grievances they encountered.
According to him the CAGD relied on confirmations from third party organizations such as the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), GES, National Archives and the Head of Civil Service to facilitate processing of pensions and that the drudgery in obtaining the necessary information apparently delayed processing of pensions.
He also said the CAGD has taken over the pre-auditing of the gratuities from the Auditor-General and said it will enhance pension administration in the country.
Mr Sottie said these were some of the measures taken to curtail delays in pension payment adding that with the implementation of the Integrated IPPD-2 system it is expected that the payroll system can be used to process pensions automatically of a staff who had retired and qualified for CAP 30.
He however said the late submission of documents and files of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the submission of incomplete and inaccurate information hindered the prompt payment of pensions to retirees.
Mr Sottie also disclosed that the department had set up a pension committee to resolve some grey issues involving pension payment adding that it had also engaged an information technology expert to automate the file tracking system at the pension section to be completed by April this year.
He appealed to prospective pensioners to fulfill the requirement expected from them and to submit on schedule the pension process without delays and queries which had been the cause of unwanted delays in the past.
He said that pension payment was a sensitive area that the government was interested in seeing a transformation in its processes to make it less stressful for gallant public servants who had successfully served the nation.
Mr Sottie had earlier addressed workers in the region and warned them to protect their pay slips because fraudsters could use them to authorize deduction from their salaries without their concern.