Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has accused his successor Kissi Agyebeng of deceiving Ghanaians that he is saving this nation millions of Ghana Cedis of the public purse from payroll audits.
In the view of Amidu, the report released by the Office of the Special Prosecutor on the payroll audit is nauseating
In a statement, Mr Amidu, a former Attroney-General said “It is time to demand that Kissi Agyebeng should stop the propaganda of saving the public purse millions of Ghana Cedis through payroll audits with the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and rather confess to Ghanaians with contrition for his suspected commission of several specified corruption and corruption-related offences under Section 79 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act 2017 (Act 959) since his assumption of office as the Special Prosecutor before the law catches up with him.
“It is nauseating to read a report from Kissi Agyebeng to-day, dated 20 May 2024, deceiving Ghanaians that he is saving this nation millions of Ghana Cedis of the public purse from payroll audits in the Northern Region when Kissi Agyebeng and the CAGD have been committing the same suspected offences of abuse of the payroll system in the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) since Kissi Agyebeng’s assumption of duty as the Special Prosecutor at the OSP. Anytime Kissi Agyebeng suspects that suspected criminal activities of the OSP may come to public notice and attention he resorts to using his supporting rented press and media to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians of his indispensability to the fight against corruption in Ghana.
https://editors.3news.com/news/osp-cagd-release-full-report-on-investigations-into-government-payroll-administration/
“Whether anybody shares the same moral and cultural values with me, I cannot allow the continued deception of Ghanaians by suspected criminals who ought to be under investigation by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) for causing financial loss to the state in the process of the commission of specified corruption and corruptionrelated offences under Section 79 of Act 959. Law enforcement cannot be a selective enterprise as Kissi Agyebeng and his particular media houses want to impose on Ghanaians in violation of the right to defend the 1992 Constitution.”
The OSP and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) have jointly presented a report on an investigation into Government Payroll Administration.
The OSP and CAGD observed in the report that the payroll system in the Northern Region (covering educational institutions under Ghana Education Service and the Tamale Teaching Hospital) is attended to by an alarming number of unauthorised and inactive validators.
Indeed, the report said, most of the management units were found to be validating persons through the use of unauthorised and inactive validators’ credentials. That is to say, the credentials of deceased and retired validators were being actively used in the validation process. Then again, transferred validators were purporting to engage in validation with their inactive previous credentials.
It was also observed that transferred and released staff were being validated by their previous management units, creating the clear danger of unattested active or continuous engagement by the respective institutions.
It was observed that some schools had no management units to validate staff. The persons affiliated with the schools were either being validated by their previous affiliated schools or were being offloaded to the nearest schools for validation.
“This created grave problems of unreliability of the validation process, especially in respect of the status of the nominal rolls of the district education directorates and the monitoring of actual attendance to duty,” the report said.
In one instance, it was discovered that DA Primary School in the Kumbungu District of Ghana Education Service did not exist at all.
Yet, this non-existent contrived entity was represented as staffed and the purported staff were being validated monthly and being paid salaries.
“It is extremely worrisome that a non-existent entity had been designated as a functioning District Assembly Primary School and the data of the artificially created staff had found its way into the government payroll system for regular payments,” the report said.
“Further, some headteachers and heads of units were validating some persons whose whereabouts were unknown to them. Egregiously, some validators were validating persons who were, to the knowledge of the validators, deceased, retired or vacated their posts.
“Out of the sampled high-risk number of 1,265 persons represented on the payroll, the joint investigation and assessment cleared 1,020 persons as regularly validated. The Special Prosecutor promptly unfroze the blocked salaries of the verified regularly validated persons upon the timeous clearance by the joint team, and these persons have been restored on the payroll system. A total amount of Two Million Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Four cedis Eighty pesewas (GHC2,854,144.80) 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.
#OSP and #CAGD have released findings into the Government of Ghana Payroll Administration. By blocking payments and removing the corresponding individuals from the Government Payroll, the Republic saved GHC34,249,737.60 for the 2024 financial year. For the full report, click… pic.twitter.com/pmmKTTkfmq
— Office of the Special Prosecutor-Ghana (@ospghana) May 20, 2024
“The blockade of the amount of Two Million Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Four cedis Eighty pesewas (GHC2,854,144.80) and the removal from Government Payroll of the corresponding deceased, retired, post vacators, the missing, and those whose whereabouts are unknown has saved the Republic an amount of Thirty-Four
Million Two Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand Seven Hundred and ThirtySeven cedis Six pesewas (GHC34,249,737.6) for the 2024 financial year, and future savings of that amount (in addition to future periodic upward pay adjustments) for every year that the unearned-salaries-amount would have remained undetected but for the joint investigation and assessment by the OSP and CAGD of Government Payroll in the Northern Region (covering
educational institutions under Ghana Education Service and Tamale Teaching Hospital).”
