Salaries of 26,000 public workers withheld over failure to update SSNIT data

About 26,000 public sector workers will not receive their April salary over their failure to update their Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) as directed by the Finance Ministry, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has said.

The Finance Ministry had directed that all public sector workers update their SSNIT data as part of moves to get rid of ghost names on the public sector payroll.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, Mr George Baah, Head of Payroll at CAGD said at least 457,595 public sector workers had complied with the directive and would receive their salary for April.

“We started having the discussion with SSNIT as far back as 2015 when SSNIT started rolling out the biometric registration exercise, so in May 2016, the CAGD issued a press release asking the employees on the mechanised payroll to take advantage of the SSNIT enrolment because that was going to be used as a means for validation, he said

“In August 2016 there was another press statement and then in December, there was another press statement, so as and when SSNIT employees go through the process and SSNIT sends the data to update the system.

“We gave a deadline that in February that employee who has not gone through the process, their salaries will be suspended."

“We wanted to take action in March but Management decided to allow more time for those outstanding employees to go through the process,” he said.

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) had asked the government to suspend the exercise to clear the ghost names.

In a letter to the Ministry of Finance, NAGRAT says the move if carried out without broad consultation could be chaotic.

“Much as we agree that you may have good reasons for that decision, we wish to draw your attention that such an action, if carried out has the potential of disturbing the peaceful environment we have enjoyed over the past few months,” NAGRAT said.

The letter, signed by the General Secretary of NAGRAT, Stanislaus P. Nabome, called for a meeting over the matter to prevent any “upheaval” the deletion of the names may cause.

“We will appreciate if we could work together to avoid any upheaval that this action can rake up. We are confident that this will meet your prompt consideration,” the letter said.