Hundreds of workers on government payroll have thronged the Town Hall in Cape Coast to go through the verification exercise.

As of 1 pm today, the town hall centre had verified 363 workers.

Eight officers sat at tables and received workers with their documents for verification.

An Assistant Public Relations Officer of the department, Mr Bernard Conduah said so far the exercise had been smooth.

He indicated that though the department did not expect such huge numbers, the numbers were manageable.

He said the department had set up another verification centre at the Cape Coast Teaching hospital to ensure that caregivers who had to go through the verification exercise did not leave the post to do that.

Mr Conduah said workers of the Ghana Education Service in Senior High Schools in the metropolis would also have a verification centre at the Adisadel College on Wednesday to serve them specifically.

This he stated was to ensure that one centre did not get overwhelmed with workers wanting to verify their status.

The exercise was launched in Elmina on Monday and is to help to help clean the payroll.

Worker Population

About 600,000 workers are expected to go through the exercise nationwide.

In the Central region, a total of 51,000 workers on government payroll are expected to go through the exercise.

The Auditor General, Mr Daniel Domelevo in his address stated that payroll was certainly bedeviled with “ghost” names who were being paid for no work done.

He said between 10,000 and 12,000 workers either died, resigned or retired every year and this called for a continuous cleansing of the payroll.

Purging System

He said the department was working on putting in place a structure to ensure that the wage structure purged itself of all “ghosts.”

No Victimization

He assured that officials of the department would be professional and ensure that no one was victimized or unjustly treated during the exercise.