GOVERNMENT employees that have not registered in the
biometric system will next week be struck off the salary roll, Public Service
Commission chairperson Dr Vincent Hungwe has said.
The ongoing biometric registration exercise, expected to be
completed next year, is largely expected to help streamline the public sector
payroll through weeding out “ghost workers”.
The programme is part of broad measures adopted by Government, with
advice from the World Bank, through the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP)
2018-2020.
It is understood that the first phase of the employee
audit, which has been ongoing in districts, closes next Monday paving way for
phase two of the programme. The second phase runs up to December and seeks to
ensure that information within the Salary Service Bureau (SSB) corroborates
with information provided during the current registration.
The final phase which will be conducted early next year and
will involve the validation of data on the national database through engagement
of an independent service provider before the system is commissioned. In a
statement, Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman, Dr Vincent Hungwe implored
civil servants to ensure they register at their districts before month-end,
failure of which, they will be taken off SSB payroll.
“The bulk of the civil servants have now been registered
for the biometric authentication project and we are now doing a mop up exercise
which should be complete by 30th September 2019. We also wish to advise those
civil servants who have not registered on the biometric system, to do so by 30
September 2019 at their district office, failure of which they will be taken
off the Salary Service Bureau payroll.”
Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli
Ncube introduced a number of measures to curtain Government expenditure when he
presented the 2019 national budget. Some of the measures include reducing the
civil service wage bill through fishing out “ghost workers”, rationalisation of
foreign missions and retirement of youth officers.
Previous civil service audits undertaken by Government in
2011 and 2015 identify the existence of ghost workers in the civil service. The
International Monetary Fund has since given President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s
economic roadmap a thumbs up adding that it; “constitutes a comprehensive
stabilisation and reform effort”. Sunday Mail
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