MONROVIA — Liberia’s Auditor General P. Garswa Jackson has underscored the significance of the independent audit of the civil service payroll being executed by the General Auditing Commission (GAC), with a threat to recommend the withholding of the salaries of government employees who failed to turnout for the exercise.
The GAC, along with its development partners, particularly the World Bank, launched an independent audit of the civil service payroll in the country in October 2021.
The move was intended to carry out a comprehensive “head count” of civil servants working at various government ministries, agencies and corporations across the country.
M r. Jackson pointed out that the exercise will help promote transparency and accountability in the public sector.
He recalled that in 2018, the National Wage Bill Team, comprising of the Civil Service Agency (CSA) and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, was put together to review the National Civil Service Payroll.
According to him, the team was tasked with the authority to harmonize and synchronize salary structures across ministries, agencies and commissions into a database and merge remuneration and allowance into a single package.
Mr. Jackson emphasized that the move was intended to discourage the operating of database systems at individual government institutions.
He added that the team was also clothed with the mandate to disburse salaries in both Liberian and United States dollars base on the availability of funds in government’s coffers and create alternative interim payroll software to ensure that salaries are processed both in US and LD.
He recounted that previously, the existing payroll software only could only process salaries in the local currency, but the system was upgraded to ensure the processing of both currencies.
Mr. Jackson pointed out that all of the deliverables assigned have been concluded by the National Wage Bill Team.
He maintained that an independent external auditor was recommended by international partners to verify the actualization of the deliverables by the team before payroll database migrates from the previous to the new Civil Service Module (CSM), adding that, “that’s how the GAC came into the picture”.
He said the commission was engaged to perform several functions, including the integrity, standardization, system and data to be migrated to ensure that adequate systems and control where put into place in a bid to promote the separate of duties to avoid payroll padding.
Mr. Jackson said government and the World Bank want the commission to thoroughly examine the works that have been done by the National Wage Bill Team, including making sure that the new system is adequate and capable enough to enhance transparency and accountability in the public sector.
As part of its efforts, he pointed out, that the commission will count civil servants one after the other to ensure that “every single person on the payroll data base are real individuals”.
“Payroll processing is one of the most significant activities of the financial management team of the Government of Liberia. If people do not get pay, there is a problem and so, we have to look at that to see that as you are moving the data from one system to the other-not only that there are adequate controls and system in place, but also the movement of the data into the new system can be done with very minimal business disruption. The only way we can do that is to have the GAC go about counting every single individual. We will be checking or counting every single civil servant as part of the process”.
“We have a number of teams for the 15 counties. When it comes to payroll validation, it is important that you do it to a large extent or simultaneously. For the 14 counties, apart from Montserrado, we will be doing the head count verification at the same time. That process is going to start on April 4 to 15, 2022”.
Mr. Jackson pointed out that two teams will be assigned at counties with larger population, while the others will have only one team assigned.
He said advance teams have already been sent in the leeward areas as pay of the civil service payroll verification exercise.
Task is difficult
Mr. Jackson continued: “This is a very herculean task and it has been performed by other agencies or integrity institutions in Liberia with very with very difficult challenges experienced during the process. The Internal Audit Agency (IAA) performed this before for the education and health sectors; it is a difficult exercise because, you have to go out there and count people, especially when you are using the old methodology-count people, goes back to the office and reconcile those who you have counted or are in the system”.
He noted that the GAC has put in place payroll audit software to provide seamless conduct of the exercise.
“We have tried to leverage on the number of national platforms in the country. For example, the National Identification Registry, and the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation database as well. We are using ICT technology to merge these data with the payroll database obtained from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning”.
Mr. Jackson emphasized that the data from governmental institutions will be synchronized to ensure that photographs of civil servants match with their respective payrolls at various government ministries and agencies.
He named auditors in the field verifying civil servants and the simultaneous ongoing reconciliation as the major advantage of the system implored by the GAC.
Withholding of salaries
Mr. Jackson pointed out that a “brief second phase” verification exercise will be carried out to ensure that civil servants who are ill, on leave or have travelled out of the country, are captured in the database.
“There will be a very brief second phase verification exercise for a period of five or seven days. But we hope that this does not happen if all of the individuals can make themselves available. Even if you are on leave, there is a ten-day period for the verification and you can make yourself available to be counted.
He stressed that the commission will not hesitate to recommend the withholding of the salaries of civil servants who will not make themselves available during the verification exercise.
“Individuals who are not counted during the both periods, the GAC and myself as Auditor General will be recommending to the government to put a hold on your salary and they will now have to come to the GAC for future verification before the ban is lifted. This is a very serious process and so, all civil servants in this country should take this exercise very seriously”.
Mr. Jackson named national identification card, a driver license, passport, or the identification card an individual is working with, as documents that will be submitted during the verification.
“You also have to come with a copy of your highest credentials submitted to us, because it will be verified by us and we also want to make sure individuals occupying government positions are qualified for the positions that they are occupying. Come at the verification site from 9AM to 5PM
He said all heads of various governmental institutions have been requested to support the process.
Retiring others
“If there are individuals who are on the database and are not real individuals, the GAC is going to report that and recommend to the government that these individuals are removed from the payroll. If there are over-aged individuals on the payroll, the GAC is also going to recommend that these individuals are honorably retired. If there is an un-harmonized salary structure and individuals are earning above or below the bar, we will also recommend that the salaries are regularize at government ministries and agencies”.
Significance of the exercise
Mr. Jackson pointed out that the exercise being carried out by the commission is intended to ensure the proper expenditure of funds on other key priorities.
“This is very important because salaries constitute the highest of our national budget. So, if salary is the major driver of the budget, it is important that the payroll is vetted. If savings are approved as a result of validation done by GAC, those savings can be used to sponsor number of other sectors”.
He indicated that the commission will put in place a software that will make the entire payroll exercise “much more seamless” by relying on ICT technology to get information from other database.
He expressed challenges over the possibility of the commission obtaining a biometric data to execute its responsibilities.
Mr. Jackson, however, expressed the hope that the outcome of the verification exercise will remove ghost names from the civil service payroll and help government save and divert funds to the needed sectors.
He pointed out following the conclusion of the exercise; a draft report will be submitted to the National Wage Bill Team, with response expected within the period of two weeks.
He said as the response has been submitted, a final report will be crafted followed by an exit conference to discuss issues that originated from the audit with the laying of a clear roadmap on how those issues can be addressed or resolved based upon the recommendations.
Thereafter, Mr. Jackson disclosed, that the report will be submitted to the National Legislature, with a copy forwarded to the President for possible actions.