Is GWCL the latest victim of SOFTtribe’s history of “inefficient” systems?

The Ghana Water Company (GWCL) has been in the news over issues of data and billing systems with its contractors, theSOFTtribe.

This resulted in the formal inclusion of the national security to intervene on securing public data of the GWCL.

Sources of theghanareport.com in some institutions have hinted that it is not the first time external help has been sought to protect data in the possession of theSOFTtribe.

In 2015, the Ghana Education Service complained about SOFTribe after the company was charged to manage a section of the public sector payroll.

SOFTribe’s “Akatua” payroll system was fraught with massive flaws leading to discrepancies in the payment of remuneration of more than 200,000 staff of the Ghana Education Service(GES).

TheGhanaReport.com sources said the system struggled to properly differentiate payment meant for individuals on different administrative levels of GES, leading to confusion in quantum of salaries paid to staff.

The ‘Akatua’ payroll system was unable to distinguish a reactivated account from reinstated ones thereby leading to under and over payment of workers under the GES payroll.

A reactivated account is to restore the data of a worker whose account has been dislodged on suspicion of it being a ghost name or the owner failing to satisfy business roll requirements of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department.

A ‘reinstatement’ account is to reinstate the payment details of staff whose wages may have been temporarily deactivated for disciplinary reasons.

‘Akatua’ system made no provision to distinguish between the two and this led to fundamental accounting errors on the payroll of the Ghana Education Service.

It is also alleged that the “Akatua” was unable to recognise change of names (through marriages or personal preferences) by staff on its system, a situation that often led to either double payment of wages, payment delays or a total scrap of legitimate names off the payroll system.

This was said to have the potential of aiding shady officials who were privy to the loopholes to pocket some ‘floating wages”, as part of the broad phenomenon known as ‘Ghost Names’ in the payroll system.

In 2015, a report prepared by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), sighted by the press indicting SOFTribe’s “Akatua’ payroll system.

The Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) was reportedly unhappy with the level of contractual breaches by SOFTribe which led to the termination of their contract.