Here is how the Ghanaian government is eliminating ‘ghost’ names on its payroll

This is to help eliminate the phenomenon of ‘ghost’ workers once and for all from the government payroll.

Dr Bawumia said that all public sector workers who are paid from the Consolidated Fund must be issued with e-zwich cards if they did not have them.

Dr Bawumia, who was speaking at the launch of a new payment card explained that the biometric features of the e-zwich made it ideal for public sector payments, as it was able to eliminate ghost workers.

He explained further that the salaries would be paid into every worker’s bank account, but would be filtered through the e-zwich system to make sure that the whole public sector payroll was without ghost workers.

“To eliminate the phenomenon of ghost workers once and for all, we are going to require that all government workers will also be paid through the filter of the e-zwich card.”

“This means that all public sector workers who do not have the e-zwich cards will be issued with these e-zwich cards and, even though the money is not going to be paid to the e-zwich card, the money will be paid into every worker’s bank account but the filter will be e-zwich and that will make sure that for the whole public sector payroll, we can say that there will be no ‘ghost’ workers,” Dr Bawumia added.

E-zwich is the national switch and smart card payment system of Ghana. The system is managed by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems.