Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has criticized his successor, Kissi Agyebeng, for misleading Ghanaians by claiming to save millions of Ghana Cedis from payroll audits.
Mr Amidu finds the report released by the Office of the Special Prosecutor on the payroll audit nauseating.
“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.
“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).”