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Tag: LIMPAC liberia

Categories
NEWS

LIMPAC Trains Payroll Analysts within the Department of Budget and Development Planning

Monrovia, Liberia – The Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center (LIMPAC) within the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning today held graduation exercise for eleven analysts within the Department  of Budget and Development Planning after two weeks of intensive training on utilization of the Government of Liberia Automated Payroll System (ATAPs) 

 Speaking at the graduation ceremony, the Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning, Hon. Tanneh G. Brunson lamented that the certification of eleven analysts within the Department of Budget and Development Planning is a milestone and great achievement for the Ministry of Finance, specifically the Department of Budget. 

She congratulated the analysts and encouraged them to use their knowledge wisely to support the mandate of the Ministry of Finance, recognize and uphold the confidentiality of payroll information.

According to Hon. Bruson, the certification is the first major step towards adequate budget analysis including payroll, and the new automated system provides the tools to perfect their understanding and analyses.

‘’ Analysts who are trained should implement what was taught during the training and apply it to their work ethic and professionalism’’ she explained.

She also encouraged the analysts to keep focus and use what was taught to them to directly improve their work, and  be open minded on the various issues during the payroll analysis process. She ended by saying ‘’ Working as a budget analyst is key, and privacy matters’’

For his part, the Executive Director of the  Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center (LIMPAC), Mr. Del Francis Wreh reminded the analysts that  the Department of Budget  remains the primary entry point for all the expenditure for the Government, including the payroll of spending entities which currently constitutes more than 40% of the National Budget.

According to him, Payroll is one of the key parts of the budget like other components such as goods and service, debt payments, capital investment, and as such the Budget Department through its analyst should have detailed understanding and involvement with payroll processes including the system and control mechanisms on the automated payroll system. 

This means analysts should access the detailed payroll of their assigned agencies to track variation in actual payroll versus personnel listing, and track and analyze trends in payrolls. 

The LIMPAC Executive Director also praised senior Management for supporting the training and future training for other departments with the Ministry of Finance. 

He praised Deputy Minister Brunson for her dedicated support and commitment shown during the entire training process.

Categories
ECONOMY REFORM

Local Government Payroll Validation Seminar Ends

MONROVIA – Liberia’s grip on loopholes in the public sector payroll is proving cumbersome – thanks to the geniuses of payroll paddlers. And so, the Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center (LIMPAC) and the Civil Service Agency (CSA) have concluded a seminar that begins the validation of payroll for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), especially local government structures.

LIMPAC, a research Think Tank of the Government of Liberia, chaired by the Minister of Finance and Development Planning assembled local government officials and payroll analyst from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “The training brings together county officials and an Analyst from MIA which accounts for the third largest agency of government with the most amounts of employees,” Del-Francis Wreh, Executive Director of LIMPAC explained.

He said the training brought everyone to the table including Superintendents, MIA, CSA, and MFDP so as to look at the payroll of each county. The total manpower strength of MIA is around 5300 and the Process also provides maximum education to the county officials about the ongoing pay reform that is currently being implemented.

The verification training is said to be targeting the Ministry of Internal Affairs especially the local government payroll as part of efforts to efficiently and collaboratively clean the payroll of all government ministries and agencies. “Additional action the government intends to take to clean the payroll is the Taskforce on Ghost Removal setup by the Cabinet. And the local government payroll is a critical aspect of that exercise along with others who the taskforce will be visiting to do headcount of employees”, he said.

He said “the last three days, we have completed cleaning 10 counties correcting 80 percent of the problems on the payroll.  We will work with the local authority to ensure we have an efficient payroll that shows value for money. For the next step, there is going to be periodic reconciliation of the local government payroll”.

For James Thompson, Acting Director General of the Civil Service Agency (CSA), this is all part of efforts to get a handle on ghosts and to end payroll paddling across ministries and agencies. “After this exercise, we would have trimmed the wage size of the government. Verification to me shows those we are carrying are the appropriate staff of the Agency of government”.

He said “we are trying to make sure we finally get a handle on ghost workers. We are bringing the county officials and central administration to know who the real people are.  We want to make sure the government is getting value for money spent on wages.  

Source: https://frontpageafricaonline.com/

Categories
NEWS REFORM

LIMPAC Completes Two Weeks Intensive Training for CSA Staffs AS HARMONIZATION TEAM TRANSITIONS PAYROLL ACTIVITIES TO CSA

The Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center (LIMPAC), the lead unit within the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning  for the on-going national pay harmonization exercise  has completed two-week intensive training for staff of the civil Service Agency. The two weeks training focused on operations of the Government of Automated Payroll System, the Alternative Temporary Automated Payroll System (ATAPS).

Ms. Amelia Gweh executivng ATAPS new employment function

The main purpose of the training was to build the capacity of the CSA staff in effectively operating the  ATAPS for smooth processing payroll and related activities for  all GoL spending entities as the Interagency Harmonization Team gradually turn over rudimentary employment and payroll services and activities over to the Civil Service Agency. These periodic employment and payroll related activities  include deletion and addition of employees  for various administrative and other reasons, updates of staff promotions , and staff personal records; including the national biometric identification number, county of assignments, email addresses, cellphone numbers, etc. 

The training which ended on Friday March 20, 2020 benefited more than 20 employees of the Civil Service Agency, mainly from within the Employment Service and Payroll Divisions.  These staffs are now trained to  process the payroll, create new employment, manage existing employments; including , termination  of  employments, and remove ghost names using ATAPS. The trainers  were Miss Mabintu Mansaray , Senior Policy Research at LIMPAC, and Miss Amelia M. Gweh, Senior Budget Software Development Specialist within the Department of Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.

Ms. Mabintu Mansary demonstrating ATAPS

At the close of the  training, the CSA Acting Director General, Hon. Jimmy Thompson, encouraged the CSA staff to full utilize skills from the training as the CSA strives to modernize   the procedures for employment and payment within central  government.

For his part  Hon. Del-Francis Wreh, Executive Director of LIMPAC  thanked the trainers for their willingness in conducting the training and  transferring knowledge to the CSA staff at this critical stage of the wage reform exercise in Liberia. Mr. Wreh also thanked the CSA staff for their  enthusiasm shown to learn and operate ATAPS, the new but temporary automated payroll system.

The Alternative Temporary Automated Payroll system (ATAPS) is a locally built software that is currently used by the Government of Liberia in automating employment and payroll processes across the government since the implementation of the National Harmonization Exercise in July 2019.  Through ATAPS, the Government of Liberia through the National Payroll Clean-up Task Force has started automating the retirement of eligible employees and blocking the salaries of the suspected ghost employees across the public sector.

Categories
ECONOMY NEWS

LIMPAC Chairs Multi-Agency Payroll Clean-Up Taskforce

In support of the on-going wage bill and civil service reforms exercise, The President of the Republic of Liberia H.E George Weah has constituted  a Multi-Agency Payroll Clean-Up Taskforce.  The Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center(LIMPAC) within the Ministry Finance and Development Planning(MFDP) has been nominated to lead the activities for the taskforce.

The Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center(LIMPAC) is a research and policy think tank in the Ministry of Finance and Developing Planning which is currently leading on the on-going wage harmonization and standardization exercise. Over the past several months, LIMPAC, leading the Payroll Harmonization Team along with the Civil Service Agency  has been working with various spending entities within the central Government in creating  transparency and equity within the national wage bill through standardizing the pay grade system, centralizing, and automating the payroll. Through the harmonization  exercise, which is backed by the National Standardization Act of 2019, paygrades were assigned to about 74,000 employees of central government thereby achieving reduction in  the Wage bill by US$30 million, from US$327 million at end of FY18/19 to US$297  million in the approved FY19/20 National Budget. Also, through the harmonization exercise, basic salary and general allowances were collapsed into a single salary and immediate salaries increment were effected for more than 15,000 employees; mainly security officers, teachers on supplementary payroll, health workers, employees of revenue generating agencies.

The Task Force which primary objective is to remove ghost employees  from the payroll in an efficient and  sustainable manner also include the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), the Civil Service Agency (CSA), and the National Identification Registry (NIR) .  LIMPAC as chairman of the Task Force will  supervise the daily activities of the Taskforce as well as forge persistent collaboration with other members and the spending entities of interest to identify and immediately remove or blocked ghost employees from the government centralized and automated payroll system.

The Internal Audit Agency Co-chairing the  Taskforce will institute physical audits of payrolls for entities on interest and provide findings to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning through LIMPAC and the Civil Service Agency  for immediate actions. The National Identification Registry will ensure that employees have valid National Identification Number(NIN), while Civil Service Agency will provide data and support to members regarding employees’ records and job history.