If we stopped payroll fraud we wouldn't need IMF bailout - Kweku Baako

Journalist Malik Kweku Baako believes Ghana would not need to run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial bailout if authorities put an end to payroll fraud.

He says the country must have lost hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis to payroll fraud, which he described as endemic.

Malik Baako read newspaper publications in 1987 and submissions by Members of Parliament on the floor of the House in the early 2000s to illustrate the point that the phenomenon of ghost names on government payroll has persisted for decades.

So too has it deprived the state of much-needed financial resources, he stated.

The Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper was speaking on Joy FM and MultiTV's news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday October 4, 2014.

He was contributing to a discussion on the payroll fraud scandal that has hit the National Service Scheme.

Managers of the NSS are reported to have ballooned the number of service personnel by over 22,000 in July this year and consequently defrauded the state of 7.9 million cedis.

Bureau of National Investigation officials investigating the fraud claim they were offered 200,000 cedis in bribe to stop their investigations

The Director of National Service, Alhaji Imoro Alhassan, allegedly paid a total 100,000 cedis with 22 other directors of the Scheme paying the remaining 100,000 cedis.

All 23 directors have been asked by the Governing Board of the NSS to step aside whilst investigations continue.

Abdul Malik Kweku Baako says the investigations must go beyond the July fraud.

'From the little I'm hearing, it appears it's an entrenched subculture and that it has been going on for many years now,' he said.

The BNI, Mr Baako said, needs 'to go further than recent years because I've heard from some sources that this has been going on for the last 10 or 12 years.'

He is convinced that 'the quantum of money we've lost as a nation' through these fraudulent activities, 'perhaps if we had it we would not be talking about IMF support.'

He said the investigators must also look beyond the payroll because the Auditor-General's report also shows that the NSS made suspicious investment decisions especially relating to its farming projects which the previous Director, Vicent Senam Kuagbenu, hailed as a roaring success.

'They invested nearly 600,000 Ghana cedis into seven farm projects; the proceeds out of it is about GHS82,000. There is an excess expenditure of 511,000 Ghana cedis and there are no records available for the Auditor-General to determine how those monies were expended, who and who worked on the farms and how much they were paid.'

Kweku Baako said the revelations showed clearly that fraud at the NSS is a huge drain on the public purse.

International business consultant and politician, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, contributing to the discussion, said the situation obtained because the authorities have failed to make theft and fraud in public office a high-risk venture.

'there is only one way you can stop it; fear!”
He said the 'impunity of actually bribing or seeking to bribe the BNI offocials' was eloquent testimony to how audacious people have become.

The state must make examples of the persons cited in the NSS scandal; 'I want to see them in handcuffs and their photos splashed on the front pages,' he insisted.

The former Executive-Director of the pro-NPP think tank, Danquah Institute, said publishing the photographs of the suspects would put fear in many and deter them from fleecing the nation through fraudulent acts.

credit: Malik Abass Daabu