By Akol Madut Ngong
The National Ministry of Public Service and Human Resource Development is preparing to conduct head count by January next year starting from the national, states and counties levels to adopt Biometrics as a fight to eliminate ghost names in the payroll system.
This development was revealed during the closing of two days’ workshop organized by the national Ministry of Public Service and Human Resource Development sponsored by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Juba.
The undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Service Dr. Julia Keer Duany said the biometrics will be effective by early January 2023 to fight malpractices in civil servants payroll.
“We are working with our partner, the World Bank, it has come in to help us to do the head count in every institutions, starting from the national and we will go down to the states and to the counties.”
She said the biometrics machine is being procured after which they will come and train the information technology (IT) personnel.
“We will kick off head count, so everybody where you are, if you have double names make sure that you choose one name from now onward,” Dr Julia added.
She stressed, that there is going to be IDs, for people who are working with government should be having their IDs because they will be connected to their account and the bank.
“If you don’t have ID then you will not receive your money.”
“We are now organizing the chapter four in the Revitalized Peace Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) which talks about resources, economic and financial management,” she noted.
“This gives us the leverage to start, we started with the undersecretary forum and now we are organizing also the Directors General forum so that the linkages of the government are realized so that they work of the ministries goes smoothly and everybody know their work, know where their mandate is and what they can do to better their institutions,” Dr. Julia explained.
The undersecretary underlined that, it is not the minister, nor undersecretary but the DGs who are the hearts of the institutions.
“We are not only banking, the peace agreement requires us, we want to build a nation, we don’t want just to have a stage where everybody do, there has to be system, there has to be regulations, there has to be policies that are followed so that the system runs smoothly”.
“The policies that are developed, DGs should be the ones to know them in and out from article to article, so when the undersecretary is there and the minister is there, they are the brains of the institutions, they need to know those things, let them take the responsibility fully and be able to build this nation with compassion to provide services to our people wherever we work,” she lamented.
“We are establishing what’s call the biometric system, biometric system to everybody identity (ID) must be there, fingerprint must be there, if somebody comes and touches your things, they will not allow, it is only you who can access your money not somebody else,”
With the new system of biometric, money will come directly into people’s hand, even the undersecretary, they will not see the money, the money will be from the bank, to bank and every civil servant will have their card with the fingerprint and that fingerprint will allow you to be the owner of the money.
Dr. Julia declared bad news to those corrupt officials who would want to have five, six names, saying it going to be too bad for them.
“We are going to have only one name for one person because we are going to use biometric system, if somebody tampers with it, he/she will show the flash to authority who are controlling the machine so this is where we are going to count and that one will help us as part of the financial management reform that people are talking about,” she emphasized.
The undersecretary in the ministry of public service said with introduction of the new biometric system of payment, they can save a lot of money as they will know exactly the people they are paying.
“We can be able to pay people better, and if we cannot pay people better, it is better we streamline our human resource (HR) so that we can be able to save our money and invest in our people in development, education, health and roads among other sectors to develop but if that money is going without knowing, this is where we are now in trouble as a country,” she cited.