The Auditor General’s recent technical and forensic audit report on the National Service Authority’s (NSA) Core Service Management Platform (CSMP) and Metric App has revealed extensive financial irregularities totaling approximately GHC 2.5 billion.
The audit exposed significant gaps in controls, unsupported transactions, and deliberate circumvention of payment protocols across the NSA’s Ezwich and GhanaPay platforms.
The detailed forensic audit, publicly released, categorized the irregularities into eight major types, with financial mismanagement amounting to GHC 2,448,202,404.46.
The primary causes were identified as weak internal controls and unauthorized transactions.
The findings include:
• Payments lacking biometric or monthly validation: GHC 989,032,520.38
• Unverified or unsupported payments to volunteers: GHC 40,104,660.18
• Unsupported payments to National Service Personnel (NSP) vendors through the Marketplace: GHC 301,935,899.82
• Irregular payments exceeding a 13-month period: GHC 1,017,827,083.99
• Unaccounted deductions: GHC 28,537,647.17
• Payments to former NSA officials without justification: GHC 8,256,000.00
• Payments untraceable in the CSMP database: GHC 7,508,592.92
• Unaccounted banking transactions: GHC 55,000,000.00Beyond these, the forensic report also uncovered additional grave irregularities involving payment misuse and personnel enrollment anomalies:
1. Unauthorized Payments to Internal StaffTwo former NSA staff members, Mr. Jacob Yawson and Mr. Gaisie Abraham Bismark, received a combined sum of GHC 20,234,468.18 through vendor entities, bypassing normal procurement and payment processes.
Mr. Yawson received over GHC 18.8 million through his company Nyansapo Comp Ltd, while Mr. Bismark obtained GHC 1.4 million via vendor CONABPOWER.
- Unsupported Payments to National Service Personnel Association (NASPA)
Around GHC 9.3 million was paid to NASPA without any formal agreements or Memoranda of Understanding clarifying the purpose or accountability of these disbursements.
The report noted there was no evidence showing how NASPA utilized or accounted for these funds.
- Enrollment and Payment of Ineligible Service Personnel
Payments totaling nearly GHC 2 million were made to national service personnel with invalid age records.
Some personnel were underage (below 18 years), while others exceeded the maximum service age limit of 60 years, including some recorded as being over 1,000 years old. There were also instances of negative age entries in the records.
- Irregular Payroll Enrollment of Deputy Executive Director
Miss Gifty Afia Oware-Aboagye, the Deputy Executive Director of the NSA, was irregularly enrolled on the National Service Personnel payroll in March 2021 despite being a full-time salaried public officer.
She received a monthly allowance that was then deducted and paid to a vendor as part of a “credit facility” scheme, resulting in irregular expenditure of GHC 6,708.48.
Combined with other similarly irregular enrollments amounting to 4,556 personnel, this misuse cost the NSA approximately GHC 899,350.
- Duplicate National Service Numbers and Payment Anomalies
The audit revealed a significant pattern of duplicate National Service Numbers linked to multiple Ezwich Unique Serial Numbers (USNs), facilitating fraudulent payment activities worth nearly GHC 150 million.
These included payments made multiple times against the same NSS numbers and simultaneous use of multiple USNs for direct payments and marketplace deductions.
The Auditor General’s report paints a worrying picture of systemic weaknesses within the NSA’s financial management framework, highlighting the urgent need for enhanced oversight, stronger controls, and transparent accountability mechanisms to prevent further misuse of public funds.
Source: www.Kumasimail.com
