Mr Geoffrey Ocansey, the Executive Director of Revenue Mobilisation Africa, has asserted that the persistent issue of ghost names within the National Service Authority (NSA) is a deliberate scheme orchestrated by a criminal cartel that must be dismantled and prosecuted.
He emphasised that legal action should not be limited solely to the heads of the NSA under whose tenure these financial leakages occur but should instead extend to a deep-dive investigation to identify every member of the syndicate involved in the theft of state funds.
Speaking in an interview on Nyankonton Mu Nsem on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM, Mr Ocansey argued that the ghost name phenomenon will remain a recurring problem unless the root network is exposed and dismantled.
He noted that these criminal activities are an organised crime run by a cartel rather than a single individual, pointing out the irony that genuine personnel often find their names missing from the portal while ghost names receive consistent payments.
His comments follow a recent internal investigation by the Director General of the NSA which uncovered significant payroll irregularities, resulting in the flagging of 8,105 personnel and the suspension of 1,840 individuals pending further investigation.
These irregularities were notably identified across the University for Development Studies, Ghana Communication Technology University, and Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development.
To curb future occurrences, Mr Ocansey proposed a rigorous approach to accountability where officials responsible for payroll oversight are surcharged for financial losses resulting from administrative negligence.
He also suggested that those found guilty of orchestrating the theft should be mandated to pay back double the amount stolen from the state coffers as a severe deterrent against future corruption.
”These criminal activities are not the work of a lone individual; they are an organised crime run by a cartel. If you arrest one person today, more will simply follow. Therefore, you must do your best to go after the cartel itself and dismantle them. While we have genuine NSA personnel working whose names are missing from the portal, we have ‘ghost names’ receiving payments. It is the responsibility of the officials in charge to ensure that only those actually employed are being paid. We must surcharge those responsible for this oversight, as it is their negligence that allowed it to happen. Furthermore, those who orchestrate these schemes to steal from the state must be made to pay back double what they have taken.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
