The Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) is to institute salaries and pension clinics in the regional and district capitals to extend its services to the doorsteps of pensioners and make payments easier. This measure would also enable pensioners to lodge their complaints to the staff of the CAGD for immediate redress. Mr Raphael Kwasi Tufuor, the Controller and Accountant General (CAG), announced this at the annual conference of the CAGD in Tamale on Friday. The conference which was on the theme: "Effective financial reporting, a key to national accountability" discussed topics including "Effective reporting, a tool for integrity of public funds," "management of the 2011 budget" and "developing human resource capacity for effective financial reporting". Mr. Tufuor charged heads of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to see to it that their salary payment vouchers were certified at the end of every month to ensure that no ‘ghost names’ existed on the payroll. He announced that printing of the payroll system would now be done in zones in the regions to minimise cost and make payments more effective. Mr. Tufuor said his outfit would soon introduce an electronic payment system to make the payment of large sums of money easier and safer for business transactions, adding that staff of the CAGD who did not have e-zwich machines would not receive their salaries for February. Northern Regional Minister Moses Bukari Mabengba in a speech read for him, said government would continue to put in place measures to ensure that the public purse was judiciously guarded and managed for the common good of the people. He said the introduction of the Financial Administration Regulation Act (Act 654 of 2003), the Internal Audit Agency Act 658, 2003 and the Financial Administration Regulation of 2004 L.I. 1802 were all legislations to safeguard the judicious use of public resources. He said with the new oil resource coming in, government had also put in place the national petroleum policy which was currently working on the petroleum management bill to ensure that revenue accruing from the oil benefited all Ghanaians. Mr. Mabengba noted that to demonstrate its concern for the welfare of pensioners, government had this year increased the pension allowances. He stated that what was left was for the CAGD to speed up the decentralization process of payments by removing the technicalities and bureaucracy involved in the processing and payment of pensions to lessen the burden and ordeal retirees go through. Source: GNA