The Civil Service Agency (CSA) says it has blocked additional 6,387 unverified employees from the national payroll as recommended by the General Auditing Commission (GAC).
Speaking Thursday, September 5, 2024 in Monrovia, the Director General of the CSA Josiah F. Joekai said a national compliance audit of the Government of Liberia Payroll was conducted by the (GAC) covering the period between 2018 and 2021. In 2022, the report, among other things, revealed that 9,287 employees, representing 13% of the workforce and receiving %US$3.7M monthly could not be verified during the exercise
He said a 90-day Post Audit Verification Exercise was conducted as an opportunity for concerned employees to be verified, but only 2,900 were confirmed and 6,387 are yet to show up.
The CSA Director General said the government continues to lose a staggering US$2.5 million to these potential ghosts representing about 9% of the total workforce, and the GAC ) recommended in the audit report that these unverified individuals should be temporarily blocked.
Joekai said the GAC report requested that the Office of Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG) should place a moratorium on salaries of all 6,387 employees not verified during the physical verification exercise and for whom legitimate excuses were not provided.
“Consequently, the CSA has blocked the 6,387 potential ghosts on the payroll pending a two-month verification after which they will be permanently removed from the payroll,” Director General Joekai said.
He said although this action is very belated due to the insensitivity and inaction of the previous government, it however demonstrates the CSA and Ministry of Finance and Development Planning’s (MFDP) commitment to curb waste and abuse of public resources, sanitizing the national payroll and bringing to book unscrupulous individuals who continue to loot the national treasury.
As a final effort to ensure those blocked have the opportunity to provide evidence as to why they should not be blocked from the payroll, he said an additional 60 days has been granted to them to verify their statuses. This exercise commenced on September 2, 2024, and is expected to run through November 4, 2024.
He said very soon, the CSA and the MFDP will in categorical terms inform the Liberian people about the amount of money that has been wasted/spent on ghosts, fake names, double dippers, getting salaries from two or more Spending Entities’ payrolls, and those he classified as living ghosts – the ones who are legitimately employed but refused to show up to work yet get paid.
“We remain relentless in this endeavor and will ask the media and all well-meaning Liberians to support us as we all try to solve the problems and build this country” he said.
Meanwhile, the Government of Liberia, cognizant of the challenges employees in rural areas face in accessing banking facilities and the costs associated with traveling to areas to access banks, rolled out salary payments using Mobile Money Transfer through LoneStar and Orange GSM Companies.
Furthermore, as part of our responsibilities to ensure that the GoL has a credible payroll, we reached out to the Attorney-General to pray the Monrovia City Court for a Writ of Subpoena Duces Tecum to the two GSM companies to produce transaction histories of all salaries paid to GoL employees using their platforms.
“We are happy to report that the two companies are cooperating with us. Notably, LoneStar Cell MTN provided several months of payment transactions. We have been assured by Orange through the Monrovia City Court that we will receive statements of recent transactions “Director Joekai said.
According to him, a total of 4, 738 transactions were done both in LD and USD of which only 3,884 transactions matched employees’ names that were on the payroll and whose names also matched the names associated with the MTN numbers.
He said 166 individuals got paid part of their salaries in LD via mobile money and the USD component through the bank. In other words, these employees were able to access their USD salaries at a bank but could not access the LD component through the very bank.
This category of payment, he said, represents L$2,761,628.80 and US$57,052.57 which accumulates into an annual amount of LR$ 33,139,545.60 and US$684,630.84.
”During our analysis, we also discovered that payments were made to Agents/businesses – 7 agents/businesses representing 22 transactions totaling LRD$294,071.00 and US$4,366. Multiplying this by 12, you have L$ 3,528,852.00 and US$52,392. That’s the amount yearly we have been paying from our payroll account to Agents/Businesses. Alarmingly, a whopping 205 and 223 (mix of LRD and USD) individuals got paid for July via mobile money but are nowhere to be found on the national payroll. Monthly, we have been paying LRD$ 3,080,614.00 and US$47,550. Yearly, this amounts to LRD$36,967,368.00 and US$570,600.00,” the CSA boss disclosed.
