Salaries of workers without SSNIT numbers suspended

Workers without SSNIT numbers will have their salaries suspended by Government, a statement issued by Finance Ministry has said.

The move, according the Finance Ministry, is to ensure clean up the public payroll.

The statement, however, added that public sector workers who will be affected by the exercise will not have their names deleted from the payroll.

“It is important to indicate that social security details of an employee are basic information required for processing the salaries of employees. It is also important to state that the stoppage of salaries of employees as a result of failure to submit social security information does not mean that the names would be deleted from the payroll but CAGD will suspend the salaries until such information are provided for their salaries to be restored”.

Below are details of the statement by the Finance Ministry

STOPPAGE OF SALARIES OF EMPLOYEES WITHOUT SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS ON THE MECHANIZED PAYROLL AT CAGD

Today, 2nd July, 2015. The Minister for Finance wishes to inform heads of MDAs/MMDAs and employees that following the press release issued by the Ministry on the 11th June, 2015, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department has suspended the salaries of employees without social security numbers from the June, 2015 payroll. This exercise is a follow up to an earlier one on employees with zero bank account numbers which ended in February, 2015.

2. Meanwhile, the attention of the Minister for Finance has been drawn to a publication in the Enquirer Newspaper of June, 24 2015 which reported that the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) of Ghana, a teacher union in the Ghana Education Service, plans to resist any attempt by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to suspend the salaries of employees without social security numbers from the June, 2015 payroll. The newspaper also reported that the Upper West chapter of the CCT threatened to sue the CAGD and the Ministry of Finance if the exercise of suspending employees without the social security numbers is carried out.

3. It would be recalled that the Ministry of Finance and the CAGD in November, 2014 began an exercise to clean the payroll to prevent the payment of salaries to ineligible and unauthorized persons. In support of the payroll clean up initiatives, government also set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on payroll with the mandate of monitoring payroll and Human Resources (HR) reforms in the public service. The payroll clean up initiatives covered among others measures on the updating of the records of employees with zero bank accounts and those without social security numbers in the payroll system.

The exercise on the zero bank accounts was successfully completed in February, 2015. The MOF/CAGD have commenced another exercise to update social security information of employees on the payroll system. In connection with this exercise the CAGD issued a press statement on 15th January, 2015 and a reminder on 19th February, 2015 with a deadline of 31st March, 2015 requesting employees to provide their social security information to their respective Personnel Processing Sections (PPSs) for the updates to be done.

The CAGD also indicated in the press release of 19th February, 2015 that the salaries of employees, who did not provide their social security numbers by the end of March 2015, would be suspended permanently. It will be recalled that the deadline for the submission of the information has been extended several times. Despite the numerous calls on employees to submit their social security information, some employees failed to respond. Heads of MDAs/MMDAs have also been informed about this exercise.

4. It is important to indicate that social security details of an employee are basic information required for processing the salaries of employees. It is also important to state that the stoppage of salaries of employees as a result of failure to submit social security information does not mean that the names would be deleted from the payroll but CAGD will suspend the salaries until such information are provided for their salaries to be restored.

5. The MOF wishes to inform the affected employees to submit their social security numbers with their social security cards or statements from SSNIT to their Chief Directors for verification and updates by the Personnel Processing Sections (PPSs) of their Ministries. The CAGD will only process the salaries of any affected employee who follows the above procedure. For more information on the total number of employees without the social security numbers, heads of MDAs/MMDAs and employees may call on telephone number 0302-678801 or visit the CAGD website END

MAJOR (RTD.) M. S. TARA
CHIEF DIRECTOR