PS Sheriff Jallow made these remarks on Wednesday April 23, 2025 as he led a team of his Ministry’s officials on an unannounced visit to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. The visit was to inspect the Biometric Time Attendance Machine installed at the said Ministry.
“When the machine is integrated to the HRMS, the data from the machine will directly be accessible through the HRMS allowing us to have access to the data centrally.” PS noted.
He reminded his colleague PS from Finance and team that, for the past months, Minister Bouy embarked on similar unannounced visits to some institutions where the machines were installed.
“We are now changing the way we do things in the civil service, because in the past, we used to have manual time attendance book, where civil servants do signed-In and-Out.” PS Jallow stated.
The rationale behind the visit, he added, was to see firsthand how the machine is functioning and to take note some of the challenges they are facing.
PS Jallow explained that his Ministry cannot just install the machines at various sectors and leave them there without inspecting them, thus it is significant to go around and see whether the machines are working or not.
He stated that as at now, the machines are a stand-alone machine as it is not connected to any network, and that the data generated from the machine needed to be utilized by both the Ministry of Public Service and institutions, where the machines were installed.
Fr his part, Abdoulie Jallow, Permanent Secreaty (PS) at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (MoFEA), described the unannounced visit as am ‘important visit.’
The visit, he said, would help his ministry monitor regular staff attendance at work as well as help to monitor the usage of the Biometric Time Attendance installed within his ministry.
“Bigger ministries like us, it will be difficult to establish on a more regular base, the absence and lateness of staff and even staff who are no longer in the system but are on Government payroll, but with this BTAM system in place, will help us tackle some challenges I highlighted above.” PS Jallow explained.
Finance PS reminded that the machine will generate, help his Ministry to trace out ghost workers in the system, so that they (ghost workers) can be removed from the payroll system.
Thus, he expressed his Ministry’s commitment to engaging the Public Service Ministry on the usage of the machine, something that will help the two institutions in the day-to-day usage of the machine more especially monitoring of staff attendance and punctuality.
By: Lamin B. Darboe
Communication Officer, MoPS
