Deletion of Names of Teachers from Pay Roll by Some Validators is Becoming a Matter of Concern – GNAT warns

BEWARE OF THE INTRICACIES OF VALIDATION AND ACT PROFESSIONALLY  ALL VALIDATORS

As part of salary administration of the Public Service, Salaries are validated every month before they are paid. The system involves validators confirming names of staff and amount due them hence a pivotal role in confirming the accuracy of employee’s details on Payment Vouchers ( P.V).

Not only does it provide reassurance to salary recipients but also serves as a critical safeguard against discrepancies in Compensation and Professional Progression.

Headteachers are responsible for validation, however for some obvious reasons some of the Headteachers have delegated that power to other teachers either on their staff or in other Schools.

Delegation of power is not bad in itself but best practices demands that the one who delegated power is still accountable for the outcome of the validation; whether negative or positive.

It is the duty of a validator who delegated power to another person to know the details on the Payment Voucher for each month before approval is given.

There is no need to rush in validating teachers under you without meticulously going through the details of the Payment Voucher.

It will interest you to note that in a particular month ghc 50 will mistakenly be captured as a teacher’s gross salary on your PV and it’s up to you to go through the details to identify this anomaly and either correct it and report same or inform your SISO or the next in command for immediate action to be taken but your guess is as good as mine when the validator decides not to go through the details before validating.

It has been observed that the wanton deletion of names of active teachers from the Pay Roll by some validators is becoming a matter of concern.

The crux of the guidelines of validation is that where there is a justifiable official reason (s) why a particular salary should be stopped, the Validator should immediately inform the cost centre manager of the development and the reason for the intended action but not to arrogate Powers to themselves.

We do not want to believe the perception out there that some of the Validators use validation for Personal scores instead of official reasons. This development is very unfortunate if it turns out to be true.

We admonish all SISOs who are mandated by the rules of the game to approve or otherwise and forward the monthly Payment Vouchers after the Heads are done with the validation to as a matter of urgency scrutinize the details of all validation by the Headteachers before approving them.

The effective scrutiny of the validated PVs before approval by the SISO will serve as a means to correct all anomalies identified before approval.

Apart from these, teachers who are reposted to other Schools should do everything possible to change their management unit from their former school to the current school to avoid the eventualities that accompanies the validator’s inability to add new teachers to the PV during validation.

It is regrettably to note that some teachers don’t even know where they are validated and who validates them until they have a challenge with their salaries.

One crucial observation made is the fact that some of our former Headteachers are still validators of the former schools; a practice that may hunt them in the near future should there be a validation challenge.

Finally, the truancy on the part of some teachers is becoming alarming
Remember that there is a window of validation called “validation with issues”.

The purpose of that window is targeted towards truancy and it’s expected that validators will implement it to the later.

The seriousness of the issue at stake is the fact that it is not easy in bringing back a teacher whose name is deleted from the Pay Roll. Sometimes, it takes 4, 5, or 6 months before the salary is restored and in most cases the victim does not get all the arrears due them.

We believe that when you intentionally punish a teacher through validation for personal reasons you would incur the curses that follows when the affected teacher and their dependants cry to God. You do not expect God’s blessings if you deliberately deny a teacher of their daily bread.

We expect validators to be mindful and read all the details that reflects on their PV’s before validating. We also appeal to our hardworking SISOs to take their time and go through the PVs before approval is given in order to maintain a genuine and transparent system.

May I please remind validators to be mindful once more of the legal implications with a commitment based on the financial regulatory act as quoted on the PV.

Credit to Osei-Bonsu
District GNAT Chairman – Krachi West