President John Dramani Mahama has ordered the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) to conduct immediate investigations into the operations of the National Service Authority.
The scope of the investigations is to cover the period under the previous government.
“The directive follows the discovery of up to 81,885 suspected ghost names on the payroll of the Authority,” a statement signed by the Minister of Government Communication, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, stated.
“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 clearance of allowance arrears dating back to August 2024,” the statement added.
According to the statement, the Ministry of Finance, has upon the completion of the head count, released an amount of GH₵226,019,224 covering allowance payment arrears for 98,145 actual National Service Scheme (NSS) 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 statement revealed.
President Mahama, the statement said, 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.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
