Introduce biometric payroll system, Govt told

Introduce biometric payroll system, Govt told | The Herald April 11, 2016

Abigail Mawonde Herald Correspondent
GOVERNMENT should introduce a biometric payroll system to rid itself of ghost workers, a senior economist with the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe has said. An audit of the civil service conducted last year, unearthed a number of anomalies including the issue of ghost workers.

Addressing delegates attending a validation workshop on wage structure and labour cost study organised by the National Economic Consultative Forum (NECF) in Harare last Thursday, Mr Prosper Chitambara said ridding the State of ghost workers would significantly cut the wage bill.

“Government should undertake a process of biometric payroll registration of all the public service. This has been implemented in a number of African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya as part of their payroll audits,” said Mr Chitambara.

“Through the use of biometrics, public service employees and pensioners can be accurately identified and remove ghost workers from the payroll,” he said.

He said Nigeria and Kenya, which had implemented the system to strengthen their public payroll administration, had reduced their public sector wage bill by 20 percent and 25 percent respectively.

Last year, Government introduced an audit of the payment system of State enterprises and parastatals but the exercise is yet to yield tangible results as senior officials still earn salaries way above what was recommended by Government.

Mr Chitambara said Government should also consider reducing the number of ministries.