A security consultant, Richard Kumadoe, has described the ongoing payroll fraud within the National Service Authority (NSA) as a widespread issue in the public sector. Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express, Kumadoe addressed concerns over the 80,000 suspected ghost names on the National Service Authority payroll, which President Nana Akufo-Addo has directed the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) to investigate. He asserted that the task is a “simple assignment” for the NIB, given their presence across the country.
“The BNI has offices across the whole space in Ghana. What they can do if they want to escalate it… they pick their registrar within a specific period, and they do a headcount with the help of the National Service District Office,” Kumadoe explained.
He outlined a step-by-step approach for uncovering fraudulent entries, stating that authorities should reconcile the number of graduates each year with payroll records from the Registrar General, as well as field documents from the National Service Secretariat.
He said, “They will look at the payroll coming from the Registrar General. Then they will pick [up] some field documents from the National Service Secretariat. Then they will look at the total number of people graduating in a year. Then they will look at the payroll coming from the Registrar General.”
“And so by the time you do the headcount by the district, you reconcile with the actual payment being made out from the controller and accountant general… By the time you get to the National Service Secretariat, you are clear which areas to do the reconciliation and where the red flags will be coming from.”
Kumadoe emphasized that the issue extends beyond the NSA, noting, “This issue about payroll fraud is quite rampant in the public sector space.”
He further explained that the challenge in tackling the problem lies in the political implications, as funds from these ghost names could be used to support political activities. “The challenge has always been that some of this money can be used for political party funding activities. So the rare people you need to help you clean out the books, they don’t,” he stated.
Addressing whether the ghost names on the National Service Authority payroll belong to real individuals or are entirely fictitious, Kumadoe remarked, “Not just the NSS. In some other public institutions, they put some other people on the payroll who have never been to those offices. And they pay them at the hands of the man.
Or they do not exist at all. In the case of the NSS, my suspicion is that there are large numbers of people who do not exist. And they create an unbalanced payment flow for them.” He suggested that a structured baseline approach could help eradicate these fraudulent payments, recommending thorough reconciliation efforts at the district, regional, and national levels.
The revelations have intensified calls for reforms within the National Service Authority.
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