The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) have released a report on the investigation into Government Payroll Administration.
In the report, it has been disclosed that an amount of GHS34,249,737 has been saved following the identification, freezing, and clearance of ghost names from government’s payroll.
“A total amount of Two Million Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Four cedis Eighty pesewas (GHS2,854,144.80) was traced as representing unearned monthly salaries being paid to persons who are deceased, retired, vacated their posts, flagged as missing staff, or whose whereabouts are unknown (colloquially referred to as “Ghost Names”) from their respective effective dates to January 2024, when it was blocked by the Special Prosecutor,” parts of the report by the OSP and CAGD said.
The report noted that the blockade of the amount of GHS2,854,144.80 and the removal from Government Payroll of the corresponding deceased, retired, post vacators, the missing, and those whose whereabouts are unknown has saved the Republic an amount of GHC34,249,737 for the 2024 financial year.
Background:
In November 2023, after several weeks of consultation and engagement, the OSP and CAGD jointly commenced a corruption risk assessment and investigation into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of Government Payroll Administration.
The assessment and investigation aimed at isolating and removing the names of nonexistent, ineligible, and undeserving persons from government payroll, recovering wrongful payments and unearned salaries, prosecuting persons suspected to be culpable for any offences, and the institution and implementation of internal controls in respect of payroll processing and payment of salaries.
The investigation and assessment covered all employees on government payroll and their respective banks and other deposit-taking financial institutions.
The investigation and assessment was carried out in two phases.
Phase I covered Ghana Education Service and Ghana Health Service while Phase II covered Ministries, Departments, all other Agencies and Metropolitan/Municipal/District Assemblies (MDAs/MMDAs).
The OSP and CAGD observed that the payroll system in the Northern Region (covering educational institutions under Ghana Education Service and the Tamale Teaching Hospital) is attended to by an alarming number of unauthorised and inactive validators.
Most of the management units were found to be validating persons through the use of unauthorised and inactive validators’ credentials. That is to say, the credentials of deceased and retired validators were being actively used in the validation process. Then again, transferred validators were purporting to engage in validation with their inactive previous credentials.
Out of the sampled high-risk number of 1,265 persons represented on the payroll, the joint investigation and assessment cleared 1,020 persons as regularly validated.
The Special Prosecutor promptly unfroze the blocked salaries of the verified regularly validated persons upon the timeous clearance by the joint team, and these persons have been restored to the payroll system.
Additional action:
In the report by the OSP and CAGD, it said they are engaged in enhanced investigation into the educational institutions under Ghana Education Service in the Northern Region and the Tamale Teaching Hospital aimed at the prosecution of persons who promoted the non-existent school; validated deceased, untraceable, and retired persons and persons who have vacated their posts.
The OSP and CAGD are engaged in the process of directing internal control mechanisms with respect to payroll processing to substantially reduce the incidence of the processing and payment of unearned salaries.
Meanwhile, the OSP is taking steps to recover unearned salaries paid in respect of deceased, untraceable, and retired persons and persons who have vacated their posts
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