publicagendanews.com

A verification team of the General Auditing General Commission (GAC) has discovered too many unqualified in the teaching system of public schools but after the exercise the ugly situation is expected to be controlled.
In an interview with the supervisor of the audit, Mr. Abraham Attoh said during his verification especially out of Montserrado County, his team discovered these teachers in the system but attributed to the long years of civil strive.
A release from the GAC says over 1500 persons in the category of teachers from Ministry of Education (MOE) stormed the General Auditing Commission (GAC) Saturday for final verification exercise of the Ministry of Education payrolls.
   The exercise which, according to GAC is at the conclusive stage, covers personnel, ranging from all principals, vice principals, registrars, teachers and non-teaching staff (Support Staff) of MOE teachers assigned at MOE schools and other schools.
  The GAC verification focuses on labor qualification audit aimed at establishing whether or not the teachers are legitimate employees with letters of employment, letters of assignment and letters of transfer. “Their educational and professional credentials such as high school diplomas, WAEC certificates, college degrees, C-Certificates, B-Certificates, amongst others are also expected to be scrutinized by the GAC.
   GAC realizes that the issue of ghost names on government payrolls has been an old aged problem of successive Liberian governments that must be put to a halt. In a release issued in Monrovia over the weekend, the GAC noted that the first pilot exercise of the Montserrado Payroll Verification captured 329 ghost names on the payroll of the Ministry of Education last year, amounting to over US300,000.00 annual lost to the Government of Liberia. The Ministry of Finance has by now removed those names.
    The teachers, beginning today to Sunday are to complete special forms designed by the GAC that is now being used to enumerate all of the Ministry’s personnel for full regularization of the payroll.
  The entire exercise is intended, according to the release to fully regularize the payroll of the Ministry of Education, which is also a condition under HIPC. The Montserrado exercise according to GAC is being carried out as a pilot exercise to lay the foundation for the remaining 14 counties.
  The Supervisor of the Audit, Mr.Abraham M.Attoh, expressed optimism that by that time GAC completes all of the counties, more money will be saved for the Liberian government from ghost names.” If we can capture 329 ghost names only in Montserrado County, there is high possibility of identifying more in the remote counties.”