Copyright ghananewss
A forensic audit has uncovered a severe breach of integrity at the National Service Authority, revealing that a former deputy director was illegally registered for national service while holding a senior salaried position. The report from the Auditor-General details how Gifty Oware-Mensah, then a Deputy Executive Director, was manually added to the service scheme’s payroll in March 2021. This enrolment directly violated the National Service Act, which prohibits full time public officers from undertaking service. According to the audit, her placement was approved by the then Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, who reportedly lacked the legal authority for such an endorsement. “The minister’s endorsement of the enrolment lacked legal basis and constituted an irregular interference,” the audit report stated. Oware-Mensah was posted to a primary school in Tamale but never reported for duty or completed biometric validation. Despite this, her name remained on the payroll for a full year. Investigators found her allowance of GH¢6,708.48 was deducted and funneled to a third party vendor through the NSA’s ‘MarketPlace’ platform without evidence of any goods or services being provided. Her case was one of 4,556 irregular enrolments that led to unauthorized expenditures exceeding GH¢899,000. Only 19 individuals in this group met the validation criteria for legitimate service. The audit attributes these widespread breaches to manual system overrides and a critical lack of automated verification checks. It describes the findings as a gross betrayal of public trust that compromised the entire national service deployment process. In response, the Auditor-General has recommended that Oware-Mensah and other implicated officials, including former Executive Director Osei Assibey Antwi, be surcharged for the full amount of the irregular payments with interest. The report also urges disciplinary and legal action against all responsible officers. This scandal follows earlier revelations that the former executive director allegedly received millions in a separate fake registration scheme. Governance analysts are now calling for immediate prosecutions, arguing that this pattern of corruption erodes public confidence in a critical national institution. As Parliament prepares to review these findings, pressure is mounting on the government to recover public funds and restore accountability.
