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Debra Matabvu, Harare Bureau
GOVERNMENT employees that have not registered in the biometric system will next week be struck off the salary roll, Public Service Commission chairperson Dr Vincent Hungwe has said.
The ongoing biometric registration exercise, expected to be completed next year, is largely expected to help streamline the public sector payroll through weeding out “ghost workers”. The programme is part of broad measures adopted by Government, with advice from the World Bank, through the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) 2018-2020.
It is understood that the first phase of the employee audit, which has been ongoing in districts, closes next Monday paving way for phase two of the programme. The second phase runs up to December and seeks to ensure that information within the Salary Service Bureau (SSB) corroborates with information provided during the current registration.
The final phase which will be conducted early next year and will involve the validation of data on the national database through engagement of an independent service provider before the system is commissioned. In a statement, Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman, Dr Vincent Hungwe implored civil servants to ensure they register at their districts before month-end, failure of which, they will be taken off SSB payroll.
“The bulk of the civil servants have now been registered for the biometric authentication project and we are now doing a mop up exercise which should be complete by 30th September 2019. We also wish to advise those civil servants who have not registered on the biometric system, to do so by 30 September 2019 at their district office, failure of which they will be taken off the Salary Service Bureau payroll.”
Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube introduced a number of measures to curtain Government expenditure when he presented the 2019 national budget. Some of the measures include reducing the civil service wage bill through fishing out “ghost workers”, rationalisation of foreign missions and retirement of youth officers.
Previous civil service audits undertaken by Government in 2011 and 2015 identify the existence of ghost workers in the civil service. The International Monetary Fund has since given President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s economic roadmap a thumbs up adding that it; “constitutes a comprehensive stabilisation and reform effort”.
Bongani Ndlovu