Guinea-bissau Turns To Blockchain To Manage Public Wage Bill

In a bid to enhance transparency and curb corruption in the public service, Guinea-Bissau has adopted the use of blockchain technology to manage wage expenditures for civil servants.

Officials overseeing public wage bill management in the country have rolled out a new software platform that leverages blockchain to securely store and exchange salary and pension information, preventing unauthorised modifications. This initiative is being rolled out across all ministries and agencies and is part of a broader set of policy reforms that the government agreed to in its program with the International Monetary Fund IMF.

Following four years collaborating with the Fund and technological advisor Ernst Young, and with financial support from selected partners, Guinea-Bissau is moving ahead with implementing this new technology, the IMF said, noting that the platform is expected to track the information for all of the countrys 26,600 public officials and 8,100 pensioners by November.

The IMF says the platform offers a secure, transparent digital ledger for managing the public services wage bill data, enabling almost real-time monitoring of salary and pensions eligibility, budgeting, payment approvals, and salary and pensions disbursements.

Each transaction is recorded in near real-time on a tamper-evident register. The blockchain solution identifies discrepancies and raises alerts when there is inconsistent salary information, noted Verdugo Yepes, the blockchain project lead.