The Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD), has held a sensitisation programme to educate its staff and government employees on its payroll, regarding the upgraded Third Party Reference System (TPRS).
The TPRS upgrade aims at resolving key issues being faced by the Government of Ghana (GoG)workers, labour unions, the CAGD and Third Party Institutions (TPIs).
Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, the Controller and Accountant General (CAG), launching the programme, in Accra, yesterday, said since the introduction of the TPRS in 2014, to manage credit facilities given to employees by TPIs, the system had resulted in critical issues that needed to be resolved.
He said that previously after transacting business with employees on the GoG mechanised payroll, TPIs were required to submit the prescribed manual input forms to the CAGD for data entry while deductions were done at source from the employees’ salaries and TPIs funds were subsequently remitted by CAGD.
The new update, Mr Kwaning-Bosompem stated sought to resolve and streamline these tedious processes to ease the load on TPIs, staff and the CAGD.
“The new system will correct issues such as wrongful and illegitimate deductions from employees’ salaries, impersonation by employees, difficulty of establishing credit worthiness of prospective clients by TPIs, monthly loan repayment drop-offs and queuing criteria on payroll systems for third party deductions,” he said.
Mr Kwaning-Bosompem explained that the TPRS was a vital software for staff of GoG as it led to a growth in deduction payment from 1.2 billion in 2014 to
3.4 billion, at the end of April, 2020.
“In upgrading the system, we also digitalized the facility application form/authority noteand removed the need for guarantor’s signature on the application form.”
Mr Kwaning-Bosompem, said “it also introduced the generation of application mandate together with the submission of pin by employees to TPIs as a means of authenticating loan transactions and ensured that employees have their bio image loaded in the system to avoid impersonation”.
He hoped that the upgraded system would lead to an increase in business conducted on the payroll system, a greater employee satisfaction and a more secured way of employees business with TPIs.
Mr Wisdom Komlah Messan, Deputy Controller and Accountant General (DCAG), said updates to the TPRS would be made available to all staff, especially those in the Central and Eastern regions, to make their transactions easier.
He stated that there could be ‘traffic’ on the system due to the large number of target audience, and pleaded to CAGD staff,and employers to exercise patience when accessing the upgraded system.
BY FREDERICK GADESE-MENSAH
