By Bida Elly David
National Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in collaboration with the R-TNLA committee for finance and economy, has set up a plan to fight ghost employees before the payment of salaries.
This development came as part of Finance Minister Bak Barnaba’s 2024 plan of action to reform the Ministry of Finance by deleting claimed operational names from the payrolls.
Last year, Minister Bak vowed to downsize the number of unqualified staff occupying spaces at his ministry, saying the institution has run out of offices.
He said competent staff will be retained to deliver professional services, while the redundant officers will be sent home until further notice.
Speaking to the No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper on Tuesday, Changkouth Bichiok, the chairperson of the specialized committee for economy and finance, said the issuance of the IDs will occur before salaries are released.
“We have been busy having different meetings, especially issues of delayed salaries. We called him and talked to them a lot about why there are delays in the salaries,” he said.
“They said they are working on it, but first working on how to get rid of these ghost names; that’s why things are delaying,” Bichiok continued.
According to him, civil servants and military officers shall be paid two-month salaries under the condition of having financial identity cards.
“They will be issued a special card called a financial ID, where if there’s duplication, it will be known that it is not you, thus you cannot receive it twice,” he explained.
On the issuing criteria, Bichiok stated that IDs are issued once per employee and shall be received based on the salary segments.
“You have to get it once, and if you want to come again with a different name, it will automatically show that no, this is the same person that has his name there and has gotten his money from there. So this is one thing,” he lamented.
Not only that, the chair further emphasized that the ministry and the parliamentary specialized committee for finance and economy will be keen to ensure that civil servants and the army receive salaries without challenges.
However, the MP failed to disclose whether the issuance of the IDs has commenced guaranteeing payments.
Last year, the governor of the Central Bank, James Alic Garang, and finance minister Bak Barnaka Chol, during their presentation of their strategic plan, said the two institutions were going to carry out comprehensive reforms in the fiscal and monetary sectors.
The two promised to fight random cash outflows from the country’s treasury and vowed to fight corruption of all kinds.