The Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has rescinded its decision to withhold salaries of workers in the public sector who have not registered for the Ghana Card.
The decision came on the back of a meeting on Tuesday, October 19, between the Ministries of Employment and Labour Relations, the Finance Ministry, and the Accountant General’s Department.
Initial measure
Per the initial measure by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), public sector workers would have been denied salaries if they had not registered for the Ghana Card by December 1, 2021.
The move formed part of ongoing measures to harmonise systems at the Controller and Accountant General’s Department and synchronize its payroll process through the card.
The decision, however, did not settle down well with some government workers and labour unions. They called on the Controller and Accountant-General to reconsider the directive and withdraw it completely or have the deadline extended.
Some labour unions stressed that the National Identification Authority (NIA) should be responsible for registering public sector workers and not compel them to acquire the card.
Current measure
Having rescinded the directive, the CAGD said, it will rather “port the names of public sector workers in their existing databases onto the NIA platform and thereafter inform the various institutions of any unregistered staff that may exist.”
That is, names of public sector workers will be transferred from their (CAGD) database onto the National Identification Authority (NIA) database, whereby the platform can easily identify all unregistered public sector workers who are available to be factored into the new identification framework.
That notwithstanding, government institutions have been advised to encourage their workers to register with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to secure the Ghana card as soon as possible.
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