As a form to avoid paying wages to ghost workers, the Government this year introduced a new electronic method of registering State Employees and Agents, known as e-SNGHR – the National State Human Resource Management System. However, the General Command of the Police is resisting the registration of police agents in the e-SNGHR, although it is considered a more transparent and reliable system. Without completing the registration of the police agents, this institution is continuing to process the payment of wages in a parallel system, which is vulnerable to paying ghost, or non-existent, personnel. The situation is also causing arrears in the paymnent of wages to police agents who are not yet registered.
The Ministry of National Defence, which had been in the same situation of delays in registration, and consequent delays in paying wages, has made noteworthy progress, and the registration of soldiers in the e-SNGHR has been almost completed. Currently, there are no serious cases of wage arrears.
The Minister of Economy and Finance, Ernesto Max Tonela, was intransigent in demanding that all the FAE must be registered in the e-SNGHR in order to abandon the parallel payment system. But it seems that the political power of the General Commander of the Police, Bernardino Rafael, is trumping the demand for transparency imposed by Max Tonela.
