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).
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.
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.