The Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has suspended the salaries of 2,777 public sector employees who failed to update their Ghana Card details on the public sector  payroll system. 

According to a letter dated September 25, 2026 and signed by the Controller and Accountant-General, Kwasi Agyei, the suspension follows earlier warnings given to all public sector workers.

He told The Fourth Estate in an interview that “We didn’t pay them for September because they don’t have Ghana Card [information] on the system. We didn’t pay them all over the country just last month [September] because we wrote to them.”

The affected employees are staff of 25 public institutions, including the National Commission for Civic Education, Ghana Audit Service, Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Ghana Highways Authority, Local Government Service, Fisheries Commission, Office of the Head of Civil Service, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, and Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

The rest are University of Professional Studies, Ghana Education Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Statistical Service, Forestry Commission, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Office of the President, Judicial Service, Economic and Organized Crime Office, National Disaster Management Organization, Lands Commission, Ghana Health Service and Ministry of Health.

When asked why his own institution had been included on the list, Mr Agyei said the identities of the institutions to which the defaulters belonged were irrelevant, provided they were public sector institutions.

“These are individual employees so it doesn’t matter whether they are Controller employees or not,” he stated.

The requirement to update Ghana card details was contained in earlier letters dated June 20, 2024 and May 21, 2025 which instructed Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure their employees’ information was updated on the payroll system.

On August 24, 2026, the Department sent out another letter directing all employees to update their details by September 15, 2026, warning that failure to do so would lead to salary suspensions.

“I hear they are rushing now to get their Ghana Card, but this thing was announced long, long ago,” Mr Agyei told The Fourth Estate.

The CAGD describes the Ghana Card details as “essential requirement for determining eligibility for continued salary payments.”

He says the move is in line with the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) and other laws which mandate the Department to safeguard the custody, safety and integrity of public funds and ensure “robust, efficient and accurate payroll services” for all government employees.

The most recent letter advises affected employees to have their Ghana Card details captured on the payroll system “without any delays” so the Department can process their salaries. It also notes that the list of affected employees has been sent to the corporate email accounts of the institutions concerned.

Mr. Agyei also said the Department will complete a full integration of all government employees with the National Identification Authority (NIA) by November 2026.

He said the Department’s next step, to be rolled out in 2027, is a self-verification exercise that would replace the traditional method of manually verifying public sector workers. 

“You pay them allowances with handheld devices as if you are going to cast a vote. Then we’ll go around, and then they have to go to [the] offices for them to be counted. I mean, no. We are going to use smartphones now [with] picture verification,” he said.

He said the exercise could run from next year, during which every employee would use a smartphone to verify and validate their records through a process linked to the NIA system.

He said the approach would reduce costs associated with manual verification and address issues of unearned salaries in the public sector which has been a drain on the national purse.