Former ED Deceitfully Takes GH559 Alawa and Embezzles Gh31m
By Gifty Boateng
The Auditor-General has finally released the full forensic audit conducted into the activities of the National Service Authority (NSA), looking at payroll data spanning the period 2018 to 2024.
The exercise uncovered a total financial “irregularities” amounting to as much as GH¢1.01 billion
Also contained in the report, aside the frightening irregularities, is the revelation that the Authority’s ex-deputy Executive Director, Gifty Oware -Mensah, who the state has hauled before an Accra High Court, for massive stealing, was enrolled on the Scheme and taking monthly allowance by personnel for 12 months.
According to the audit report, Oware-Mensah was manually uploaded into the National Service Scheme system on March 16, 2021, based on her Master of Public Administration degree from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) under former Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, on April 22, 2021.
The report incidentally said the Minister did not have the authority to approve such a PIN assignment and incidentally he was also the first NSA boss under President Akufo-Addo.
Oware-Mensah was posted to the Koblimahagu Sobriya Primary School in Tamale in the Northern Region but failed to report for duty or undergo any biometric validation, yet still appeared on the payroll.
The audit further revealed that she was among 4,556 individuals who were improperly enrolled as service personnel, leading to an irregular expenditure of GH¢899,349.67.
Oware Mensah, who is facing several charges for allegedly stealing millions of Ghana Cedis for the last eight years did not spare the meagre allowance received by personnel who had no permanent employment unlike her.
According to the charge sheet, between February 2022 and March 2024, Oware-Mensah dishonestly caused the transfer of GH¢31,502,091.40 belonging to the NSA into the account of Blocks of Life Consult, a company she allegedly controlled
She’s formally been charged with five counts, including willfully causing financial loss to the state, stealing, money laundering, and using public office for profit.
Additionally, the forensic audit found that some 120,777 service personnel were paid more than the approved 13-month limit.
According to details released to Parliament earlier this month, over GHS1 million was in payments exceeding 13 months.
Also, GHS989 million was paid to service personnel without going through biometric or monthly attendance verification.
The rot did not end there as there was also GHS302 million paid to vendors without contracts, evidence, invoices of work done.
In the view of the Technical and Forensic Audit Report the payments were made against Act 426 of 1980.
The audit maintained that the software used by the Authority which was headed by two Executive Directors, within the period was found to be fit for purpose even though it had some control weaknesses.
It said the NSA deliberately bypassed controls built into the application so it could go ahead it agenda.
This is interesting because the NSA under the current administration recently replaced the technology despite the auditors giving it a clean bill of health.
This is coming at a time the first NSA boss under President John Mahama, Felix Gyamfi was replaced as issues concerning the technology became a contention leading to his movement to the Finance Ministry.
Gyamfi’s sudden removal, according to media reports brewed tension between him and the sector Minister, George Opare Addo.
There were excessive manual overrides. The software was supposed to automate many processes, yet a lot of them were done manually.
For instance, 78% of postings that were supposed to be automated between 2018 and 2024 bypassed the process. Over 65% of enrolments were manually done. Simply changing the technology won’t address these issues.
In recent months the NSA has been under scrutiny after a verification exercise revealed that while the payroll listed over 180,000 service personnel, only about 98,000 were verified as genuine.
The remaining names were allegedly “ghost personnel”, with an estimated GH¢653 million reportedly siphoned from the state.