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Missing names from health worker
census will not be paid - MOH
Accra, Nov. 20, Ghanadot/GNA - The Ministry of Health (MOH)
would stop the salaries of health workers who were not
enumerated under the health worker census if they did not
contact the Ghana Statistical Service and the Auditor
General's Department by the end on this month to remedy the
situation.
Major Courage Quashigah (Rtd), Minister of Health on Tuesday
said, "such workers had up to the end of this month to get
enumerated otherwise they would be declared as "Ghosts" and
their salaries would be stopped."
Opening the annual health summit of Health Development
Partners, he said there were 42,679 health workers on the
payroll but the preliminary results of the census showed
that about 5,000 of them could not be enumerated during the
census.
"We are currently working with the Ghana Statistical Service
to validate this figure. At the end of this month we will
declare all staff that could not be enumerated as "Ghosts''
and their salaries will be stopped."
He said government initiated a programme to address the
threat to service delivery from the brain drain of key
health professionals by expanding the health training
institutions and established the Ghana College of Physicians
and Surgeons and reviewed the salaries of health workers,
among other things.
Major Quashiga said after arguing concurrently at the
international level against the unethical recruitment
practices of developed countries, the MOH projected that
only 150 health workers would leave, 6500 would enter the
training institutions and 5190 would be recruited to join
the workforce, bringing an increase in the payroll by about
11,600.
He said though this was good news for health delivery, it
had major implications for the wage bill and the Ministry's
ability to finance the budget and this was the reason he
personally supervised the cleaning up of the payroll last
year.
Since there was the belief that there were still some ghost
names on the payroll the census was carried with support
from the Department for International Development and the
World Bank.
It included, among other things, the collection of
thumbprints and pictures of health workers on the payroll to
minimise any possibility of impersonation, the Minister
said.
GNA
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