TREASURY has struck off 3 000 names from Government’s
payroll after a recent headcount revealed thousands of ghost workers.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) recently undertook a
biometric registration exercise for all civil servants under which personal and
educational details were captured by both the PSC and the Registrar-General
(RG)’s Office.
Registration was particularly for public service employees
who are on the Salary Service Bureau (SSB) payroll.
The exercise, which was adopted by Government in
partnership with the World Bank, seeks to rationalise the civil service wage
bill by ensuring an auditable and verifiable head-count.
Public Service Commission Secretary Ambassador Jonathan
Wutawunashe said thousands had been taken off the payroll as of last week. The audit is still ongoing.
“We have made progress with this exercise to exclude those
who had not registered. “We will be doing so beginning end of this month,” he
said.
“There are about 3 000 workers who failed to register with
the RG’s office by the time of closing the registration process.
“By the end of last week we had finished removing those who
had failed to comply with the registration regulations.
“We are going to assume that those who did not manage to
register are no longer with the Public Service and therefore they will be
struck off the SSB payroll.
“Remember, the exercise was to weed out ghost workers from
the pay roll.”
“The PSC will continue to recruit. However, from now we
will be using this kind of registration for our workers.
“We are still on course with the exercise despite the
coronavirus pandemic. We are hoping to complete the exercise on time.”
The biometric registration of civil servants was
commissioned early this year, in an exercise that is largely expected to help
streamline the public sector payroll through eliminating ghost workers.
The exercise is running under three phases.
Phase one involves the registration of civil servants at
various districts nationwide, while the second phase entails tallying the
information captured during registration with details that already exist within
the SSB.
The final phase involves validating data on the national
database. After all the processes have been completed, the system will then be
commissioned.
Human resources consultant Mr Memory Nguwi said the
exercise will ensure cost savings and the integrity of Government systems.
“This a step in the right direction for the Government
given that staff costs are taking a big chunk of the national budget,” he said.
“It is important for every organisation to pay for the
service rendered, but in this case, Government has been paying for services unrendered.”
A similar nationwide audit in Tanzania in 2016 managed to
remove more than 10 000 ghost workers from the public sector payroll, helping
save more than US$2 million per month.
President Mnangagwa has placed civil service reforms at the
centre of his reform agenda, which includes Government spending.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli
Ncube introduced a raft of measures meant to right-size public expenditure in
the 2019 Budget.
Some of the measures include cutting salaries for senior
civil servants, rationalisation of foreign missions, retirement of youth
officers, public service retirements and introducing a head audit for civil
servants.
Previous civil service audits undertaken by Government in
2011 and 2015 point to possible existence of workers that cannot be accounted
for in the public service.
Over the years, economic experts have been exhorting
Government to reorient spending from recurrent expenditure to capital projects.
According to the IMF 2017 Staff Report on the Article IV
Consultations, high spending pressures stemmed from high employment costs,
Government transfers to support specific economic sectors and elevated
discretionary expenditure. Sunday Mail
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