OSP, CAGD save govt GH¢ 34m from “ghost names” on Northern Region payroll

The Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department have discovered unqualified individuals in certain governmental institutions in the Northern Region receiving monthly salaries.

In a report by the OSP on Monday, the OSP and CAGD observed that the Northern Region payroll system, which includes educational institutions and the Tamale Teaching Hospital, had unauthorised and inactive validators actively validating individuals using deceased and retired validators’ credentials.

It also revealed that staff transferred and released to other jurisdictions were validated by their previous management units, posing a risk of unattested engagement.

Some schools had no validation units, leading to unreliability in the validation process, particularly in monitoring nominal rolls and attendance on duty.

In addition, a primary school in Kumbungu District was found to be nonexistent, yet its staff were validated and paid monthly.

According to the OSP and CAGD, monthly unearned compensation totaling GH¢2,854,144.80 was being paid to persons on the “ghostlist, equivalent to a whopping GH¢34,249,737.60 in total expected payments for 2024.

“A total amount of Two Million Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Four cedis Eighty pesewas (GH¢2,854,144.80) was traced as representing unearned monthly salaries being paid to persons who are deceased, retired, vacated their posts, flagged as missing staff, or whose whereabouts are unknown (colloquially referred to as “Ghost Names”) from their respective effective dates to January 2024, when it was blocked by the Special Prosecutor.”

“The blockade of the amount of Two Million Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Four cedis Eighty pesewas (GH¢2,854,144.80) and the removal from the government payroll of the corresponding deceased, retired, post-vacators, the missing, and those whose whereabouts are unknown have saved the Republic an amount of Thirty-Four Two Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-Seven cedis Six pesewas (GH¢34,249,737.6) for the 2024 financial year and future savings of that amount,” the report noted.