The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has agreed to support calls for security agencies under the Ministry of the Interior to be given self-accounting status to improve payroll monitoring and prevent financial irregularities.
The proposal came up during a committee hearing into the overpayment of salary arrears to newly recruited officers. Interior Minister Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka told the committee that he had been pushing for the change.
PAC Chairperson Abena Osei-Asare said extending the system, which the Ghana Police Service currently uses, to the Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Immigration Service and Ghana Prisons Service could make payroll audits easier and improve accountability.
“And it’s easier to audit. It’s very much easier to do payroll audits with such units than the way it is now. So maybe we will also put it in our reports to hammer on it that it is time that the other agencies, just like the police, also do self-accounting so that we can stop some of these things. It will be easier to manage such payrolls,” she said.
Mr Muntaka welcomed the proposal and urged the committee to support the call. He said he had been advocating for the reform since he became Interior Minister. The committee chairperson agreed that PAC would also support the proposal.
The discussion followed concerns over GH¢37,907 in salary arrears that were wrongly paid to seven officers of the Ghana Immigration Service.
The Minister told the committee that about GH¢24,900 had been recovered, leaving about GH¢13,007 still to be paid back.
He said the officers were newly recruited and proposed deducting about GH¢500 from their salaries each month to recover the outstanding amount without putting too much financial pressure on them.
However, he expressed doubts about recovering interest on the overpayments.
Mr Muntaka also called for the causes of the payroll errors to be addressed. He argued that newly recruited officers who unknowingly receive more money than they are entitled to should not be left to carry the burden of correcting the mistakes alone.
