Accountant-General pays salary arrears

Front page (Daily Graphic), December 4/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has cleared all salary arrears due workers on its payroll as of the end of November this year.
It said a second payment, which covered salary arrears arising from promotions, new entrants, corrections, among others, had also been duly taken care of.
Speaking to newsmen in Accra yesterday, the Deputy Controller in charge of Financial Management Services at the CAGD, Mr Ntim Amponsah, said the payments also included regular November salaries for a few employees whose records required corrections and validation before the system would allow payment.
He said the move was in fulfilment of assurances given to the workers by the Controller and Accountant-General, Mr Christian Sottie, last month on efforts being made to rectify all salary anomalies.
Some workers had suffered excessive salary recoveries in October 2008 and had ended up with zero or very little net salaries, among others.
Mr Amponsah said the CAGD had been working to update pensions and pay, resulting in arrears, adding that it had successfully upgraded and started paying the pension arrears of Ghana Education Service (GES) pensioners from November.
He said Civil Service pensioners and other categories were also being processed for payment this month and in subsequent months.
Mr Amponsah said while all that had been done, there was likely to be a few who would still suffer and asked those to be affected negatively not to hesitate to get in touch with the department for immediate rectification.
“All those who believe they have been wrongly paid (overpaid, underpaid or not paid) should contact their respective heads of departments who should submit the necessary input forms for the correction of the error(s),” Mr Amponsah added.
He said the department had come up with a toll-free number, 080010200, on both Ghana Telecom fixed lines and its OneTouch mobile network.