A SEMI-MONTHLY payroll for government servants at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) will be introduced on a pilot basis starting January 2018.

The rationale behind the twice-a-month salary payment is to increase the effectiveness of cash flow management of officers and staff to finance their daily expenses, facilitate spending planning, help sustain commercial and economic activities in the country and make the domestic economy more resilient.

The Treasury Department of the MoF yesterday conducted two briefings simultaneously at the Theatre Hall of the PMO and at the MoF to disseminate information on the semi-monthly payroll.

The briefing at the PMO was presented by Dato Paduka Ahmaddin bin Haji Abdul Rahman, Permanent Secretary (Policy and Investment) at the MoF. Meanwhile, at the MoF, it was presented by Norliah binti Haji Kula, Permanent Secretary (Performance) at the MoF.

In the preliminary stage, the twice-a-month salary payment project is to be piloted at the PMO and the MoF. This is to enable the Treasury Department to evaluate and review feedbacks on the implementation of this programme before extending it to other ministries and agencies.

As the Computerised Payroll System and Daily Paid System are under the control of the Treasury Department, the pioneer implementation of the project at the MoF will enable it to obtain immediate feedbacks from its officers and staff.

The implementation of this initiative will involve all officers and staff under the PMO and the MoF who hold permanent, contractual, monthly, open-vote and daily-paid status and whose salaries are disbursed through the Treasury Department.

Officers and staff of the Statutory Bodies and Government Linked Companies are not included in this initiative. However, Statutory Bodies and Government Linked Companies can implement this project subject to their respective boards’ resolution.

The i-Ready scheme (graduates seeking jobs) and Capacity Building Centres are also not included in the twice-a-month payroll system apart from payment of Service Pension, Old Age Pension Allowance, Title Allowance, Welfare Assistance, Disability Allowance and the like.

The twice-a-month payroll system works according to the type of payment of salaries as follows.

For those who get monthly salary, net wages will be calculated like the current calculation after making all necessary deductions from the total salary and allowance.

The net salary will be divided into two, whereby half of which will be paid in the middle of the month and the other half will be paid at the end of the month. Payroll slips would still be issued once a month, which is during the first payment of wages during the month.

Meanwhile for the daily-paid staff, payments will be made through the Treasury Accounting and Financial Information System (TAFIS) and the amount of salary to be paid will be calculated based on the number of days. In this case, the monthly deduction will be divided into two.

The salary slips can be printed by the relevant department if required by the officers and staff.

The department will include information in the Daily Paid system on the first week of each month for the full the month. Deductions including for absenteeism during the month will be made in the next month’s salary.

Meanwhile, for payment through voucher, the amount of wages and will be divided into two and deductions will be made in the middle and end of the month. For deductions that need to be channelled to third parties such as TAP and SCP contributions will be paid to the relevant agency at the end of the month. Bonus payments will be maintained as usual at the end of December.

The MoF said the implementation of the twice-a-month payroll has also been supported by financial institutions. These institutions will divide all the deductions for personal loans, mortgages, vehicle purchase loans and other loans to be deducted from the payroll.

A series of briefings will be conducted to explain the new payroll initiative to all officers and staff of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance as well as departments under it.

Further information can be obtained through the Ministry of Finance’s website at www.mof.gov.bn, or contacting 2383444.

Courtesy of: Borneo Bulletin, Wednesday, Nov 15, 2017