President John Dramani Mahama has directed the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) to launch an immediate investigation into the National Service Authority (NSS).
The directive follows the discovery of 81,885 suspected “ghost names” on its payroll.
The probe aims to uncover how these fraudulent entries were created, particularly under the previous administration.
The investigation was triggered by a headcount of active National Service personnel, initiated by the Minister of Finance to clear allowance arrears dating back to August 2024.
“The ghost names were detected following a head count of active National Service personnel at
the behest of the Minister for Finance as a prerequisite for the dearance of allowance arrears
dating back to August 2024”, the statement said.
The headcount revealed significant discrepancies: the previous NSS management had presented 180,030 names for allowance payments, but only 98,145 were verified as actual service personnel.
Consequently, the Ministry of Finance released GHS 226,019,224 to cover the allowance arrears of legitimate service personnel.
“The Ministry of Finance has upon the completion of the head count, released an amount of GHS 226,019,224 covering allowance payment arrears for 98,145 actual National Service Personnel”
“This figure is 81,885 less than the 180,030 names presented by the previous management of the
Authority for allowance payment in 2024”.
President Mahama has instructed the new NSS management to implement urgent reforms to prevent future fraudulent activities. These reforms include establishing stronger controls and accountability mechanisms to safeguard public funds
“President Mahama has also tasked the new management of the Authority to carry out urgent
reforms with the view to establishing adequate controls to prevent a recurrence of the
phenomenon of ghost names”.
Source : www.kumasimail.com /Kwadwo Owusu
