Payroll and Ghost Employee Fraud Prevention

Payroll is one of the largest recurring cash outflows and a persistent fraud target across African public and private payrolls. This course shows finance, HR and audit teams how ghost employees, inflated hours, diverted deductions and terminated staff schemes are perpetrated and concealed. Delegates learn to run headcount verifications, reconcile the master file and design controls that close the gaps.

What you will be able to do

Map the payroll cycle and identify where fraud risk concentrates.
Detect ghost employees through headcount and biometric verification.
Analyse the payroll master file for duplicate and anomalous records.
Design segregation of duties between HR, payroll and finance.
Investigate suspected payroll manipulation and recover losses.
Build a continuous payroll audit and exception reporting routine.

Course outline

01The Payroll Cycle and Fraud Risk Map
02Ghost Employee Schemes and Physical Verification
03Master File and Banking Detail Manipulation
04Falsified Hours, Overtime and Commission Fraud
05Deduction, Loan and Third Party Payment Diversion
06Segregation of Duties and System Controls
07Payroll Data Analytics and Exception Reporting

Who should attend

This programme is aimed at payroll managers, HR practitioners, internal auditors and finance officers responsible for salary processing and payroll integrity.

Dates, venues and fees

Dates	Venue	Days	Fee
17 to 18 Aug 2026	Mauritius	2	US$1,100
24 to 25 Aug 2026	Dubai	2	US$1,100
31 Aug to 1 Sep 2026	Lagos	2	US$1,100
7 to 8 Sep 2026	Harare	2	US$1,100
14 to 15 Sep 2026	Kampala	2	US$1,100
21 to 22 Sep 2026	Dar es Salaam	2	US$1,100
28 to 29 Sep 2026	Pretoria	2	R10,000
5 to 6 Oct 2026	Cape Town	2	R10,000
19 to 20 Oct 2026	Online	2	US$900
26 to 27 Oct 2026	Mozambique	2	US$1,100
2 to 3 Nov 2026	Cairo	2	US$1,100
9 to 10 Nov 2026	Accra	2	US$1,100
16 to 17 Nov 2026	Lusaka	2	US$1,100
23 to 24 Nov 2026	Kigali	2	US$1,100
30 Nov to 1 Dec 2026	Nairobi	2	US$1,100
7 to 8 Dec 2026	Durban	2	R10,000
14 to 15 Dec 2026	Johannesburg	2	R10,000

Fees are per delegate. South African venues are priced in rand; other locations and online in US dollars. Fees exclude 15% VAT where applicable. Group bookings of three or more delegates from the same organisation qualify for a reduced rate; contact us for a quotation.

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Training a whole team?

We can run Payroll and Ghost Employee Fraud Prevention privately for your team, on your dates and built around your own systems. Group delivery is usually more cost effective from about six delegates.

Run this in-house