The Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has migrated the Third Party Reference System (TPRS) onto a digital platform to help enhance transactions between the Department and Third Party Institutions (TPIs).

The TPRS is the platform which allows the Department to make deductions for TPIs that provide credit facilities to employees on the government pay roll.

The Controller and Accountant-General, Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, at the launch of the upgraded platform at a ceremony in Accra yesterday, said it would help address challenges associated with the manual system that was previously used by the department for such transactions.

He said challenges, such as wrongful and illegitimate deductions from employee’s salaries, impersonation by employees and the difficulty of establishing the credit worthiness of prospective clients by TPIs, would be addressed by the deployment of the upgraded platform.

Digitised system

“In 2014, the Department entered into a private partnership arrangement with a consultant resulting in the development of the Third Party Reference System which is the software used to manage credit facilities given to employees by Third Party Institution,” he said.

He explained that the deployment of the TPRS led to increased business activities by TPIs.

For instance, he said, there was growth in the deduction payment from ?1.2 billion in 2014 to ?3.4 billion as of April 2020.

However, he said having used the system for nearly seven years and considering the concerns of stakeholders, including government employees, the department decided to upgrade the system to make it more efficient.

The upgrade included digitising the facility application form or Authority Note and removing the need for guarantor’s signature of the application form.

This means that employees are no longer required to submit loan advance forms or authority notes in order to secure a loan or access a credit facility.

It also included the introduction of the generation of application mandate together with the submission of Personal Identification Number (PIN) by employees to TPI as a means of authenticating loan transactions and ensuring that employees had their bio image loaded in the system to avoid impersonation.

E-Payslip

The upgraded platform also allows employees on the government’s payroll to have electronic access to their pay slip information.

The electronic pay slip could be accessed either on a mobile phone or any computer with internet connection and does not only serve as a means of checking pay slip information but also make room for a person to check his or her affordability to access a loan, generate mandate number, change association, report wrongful deductions and also monitor third party deductions.