OSP Discovers “Ghost” School In Kumbungu with Workers on Govt Payroll

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) in conjunction with the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has traced monthly payment of over two million cedis to teachers in educational institutions under the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

In a corruption risk assessment and investigation into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of Government Payroll Administration, the two bodies found that out of 1,265 persons flagged on the government payroll, 1,020 persons were legally earning salaries.

In their probe, it was also discovered that a non-existent primary school in the Northern Region had staff who were illegally earning salaries monthly.

“In one instance, it was discovered that xxxxxx 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.”

It is unknown how long the “ghost” school and its purported workers have been in place, but this was revealed by the OSP in its recent report on a piloted corruption risk assessment and investigation into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of Government Payroll Administration.

In all, the OSP discovered that a total GHC2,854,144.80 represented unearned monthly salaries being paid to persons who are deceased, retired, had vacated their posts, flagged as missing staff, or whose whereabouts are unknown.

This move, the OSP in its report said, has saved the country GHC34,249,737.6 for the 2024 financial year, and future savings of that for every year that the unearned-salaries-amount would have remained undetected.

The investigations which began in December 2023 and ended in April 2024 in a piloting with the Northern Region was aimed at isolating and removing the names of nonexistent, ineligible, and undeserving persons from government payroll, recovering wrongful payments and unearned salaries, prosecuting persons suspected to be culpable for any offences, and the institution and implementation of internal controls in respect of payroll processing and payment of salaries.

Actions
The OSP in the report noted that steps have been initiated to recover all the salaries paid to the ghost names.

Additionally, it’s investigating the educational institutions under Ghana Education Service in the Northern Region and the Tamale Teaching Hospital to single out person who promoted the non-existent school; validated deceased, untraceable, and retired persons and persons who have vacated their posts for onward prosecution.

Also, the two bodies are engaged in the process of directing internal control mechanisms in respect of payroll processing to substantially reduce the incidence of the processing and payment of unearned salaries while efforts are underway to implement similar investigations in remaining regions.

The OSP and the CAGD has already initiated an investigation into the educational institutions under GES in the Northern Region to identify persons behind the fabrication.