More than 17, 000 unregistered workers on government payroll remain unpaid as the government continues its exercise of ridding the state’s payroll system of ghost names.

This was revealed in a statement by Chief Director of the Finance Ministry, Patrick Nomo, who has asked affected workers to head to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to get registered.

Since government’s decision to suspend the salaries of workers who had not registered on the new SSNIT biometric system, almost 10,000 workers have subsequently been registered and validated onto the payroll, leaving more than 17, 000 more to be validated.

According to the statement, subsequent to the suspension of the salaries of the unregistered workers, 9, 375 workers had subsequently been registered and validated onto the payroll.

Additionally, a supplementary payroll was run and payment was effected to the validated staff on May 11, amounting to some GHC 11.3 million.

Also, about 3,000 more are currently being validated and would be paid as part of the May 2017 salaries.

The ministry is urging staff, who registered and have valid SSNIT numbers but have not gone through the biometric registration to visit the nearest SSNIT Branch with their payslips and any one of the under-listed National Identification Cards to be registered: National Identification Authority card, National Health Insurance Scheme card, passport, driver’s license and voter identification card.

Concerning staff who had gone through SSNIT biometric registration but were not paid, the statement said: “Affected staff should visit the nearest SSNIT branch with their pay slips and their biometric cards. If the staff are not able to provide their Biometric Cards, any one of the cards described above could be accepted as proof of Biometric Registration for further validation.”

The statement issued also recounted that the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, on February 10, requested the Controller and Accountant General (CAGD) to inform all public servants on the Government of Ghana mechanised payroll system, who had not registered on the new SSNIT biometric system to do so by the end of February 2017.

It said this directive came into effect on the April 2017 payroll.

It noted that consequently, the salaries of 26,589 unregistered workers were suspended indefinitely until their SSNIT re-registration is completed.17214

It said subsequent to the suspension of the salaries of the unregistered workers, the following actions had been taken: 9,375 workers had subsequently been registered and validated onto the payroll.

It said supplementary payroll was run and payment was effected to the validated staff on May 11, amounting to some GHC 11.3 million.

The statement said about 3,000 more were currently being validated and would be paid as part of the May 2017 salaries and would consider validated arrears.

“It is the following roadmap towards cleaning the payroll was hereby communicated to all affected stakeholders, as part of a broader payroll management strategy,” it said.