(L-R) Henry Nana Boakye (Nana B), Hopeson Adorye and Mustapha Ussif
Leading member of the Movement for Change, Hopeson Adorye, has asserted that Gifty Oware-Mensah, a former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), is being unfairly treated over her alleged role in the ghost names scandal.
Speaking in an interview on Onua TV on March 5, 2025, Hopeson Adorye said that Gifty Oware-Mensah, who in his view was not deeply involved in the scandal has become the face while persons he views as the masterminds have been left off the hook.
The leading member of the Movement for Change, who is a former New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary hopeful, explained that per the operations of the NSS, even though Oware-Mensah might have benefited from the proceeds of the scandal, she certainly played a small role in it.
He added that Gifty Oware-Mensah was in charge of administration and, therefore, was not an active participant in the alleged corruption scheme at the NSA.
“The people who are not involved in this process have become the face of this scandal. This is what is worrying me the most,” he said in the Twi dialect.
He added that the NIB should also be investigating directors of operations within the stated period, which includes the National Organiser of NPP, Henry Nana Boakye (Nana B).
“I also don’t understand why some of them are in their homes. They have not been invited to come and answer any questions. The Executive Director should have been investigated first. He is the one who was made sports minister, Mustapha Ussif. It was during his time that the ghost names thing started… Why has he not been invited? Is it because he was a minister?
“Nana B, who was Deputy Executive Director in charge of operations, is walking around organising press conferences. They were the ones who were in charge of the generation of NSS pin codes. The NIB has not invited him. Why is that the case?”
About the NSS scandal:
The Fourth Estate first uncovered the ghost names scandal in November 2024 but was initially prevented from publishing its findings due to an ex-parte injunction secured by the NSA.
However, the court later lifted the injunction, allowing the report to be published. The investigation covered records from 2017 to 2023, including the 2024 national service year.
During an interview on Channel One TV, Kwaku Krobea Asante, the Manager of the Independent Journalism Project under the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), described the irregularities as frightening. He pointed out that the payroll system contained odd entries, such as individuals over 80 or 90 years old and fraudulent index numbers.
“Ghost names in the sense that what the NSA tells us as the number of personnel is different from what they have in their data. This data, we believe, eventually makes its way into the payroll and gets paid. Now, the government has confirmed this.”
“Beyond that, we see how they do this—how they pack the payroll with ghost names, which is what the story is trying to expose. How they use over-age individuals, some as old as 80 or 90 years, to falsify records. How they create fake index numbers in the name of universities to justify these names.”
“Funny names keep appearing—a single name could be repeated 226 times. Such a person supposedly completed the same university, studied the same program, in the same year, and was deployed multiple times. A lot of oddities in the data suggest that these entries were deliberately manipulated.”
The suspected ghost names on the NSA payroll are now the subject of a probe ordered by President Mahama.
A headcount of active national service members exposed the probable phantom names, according to Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the president’s spokesperson and Minister of Government Communications.
As part of efforts to pay off unpaid allowance arrears dating back to August 2024, Mr. Ofosu clarified that the exercise was carried out at the request of Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, Minister of Finance.
Once the headcount was completed, the Finance Ministry issued GHS 226,019,224 to settle arrears for 98,145 legitimate 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,” the minister’s statement said.
Watch the interview below:
BAI/EK
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