President John Dramani Mahama has directed state security agencies to declare officials of the National Service Authority who have fled the country after being implicated in the ghost names scandal as wanted.
He further stated that he has directed for the assets of absconded individuals to be frozen and traced as investigations continue. According to him, the theft of state and public funds is a criminal act, and he firmly believes that such criminal activities must not go unpunished.
“As part of our Operation Recover All the Loot (ORAL) policy I have already tasked our investigative bodies to bring the culprits of the National Service ghost name scandals to justice. Such brazen theft of public funds must not go unpunished. It is estimated that the criminal addition of more than 80,000 ghost names could have yielded the suspects over GH¢50 million every month.
“Unfortunately, some of these suspects are believed to have absconded from the country already and so, I have directed that they be declared wanted and their assets traced and frozen until investigations are completed,” he made this known while delivering his maiden SONA in his second term as president on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, February 27, 2025.
This follows the discovery of about 81,885 suspected ghost names on the National Service Authority’s payroll.
The ghost names were detected following a headcount of active National Service personnel, conducted at the behest of the Minister for Finance as a prerequisite for clearing allowance arrears dating back to August 2024.
The National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) detained Yaw Danso, an Accountant at the National Service Authority (NSA), in connection with the ghost names payroll scandal.
His arrest followed that of Kwaku Ohene Gyan, the former Deputy Director of Operations at NSA, who was taken into custody on February 22, 2025.
Gifty Oware-Mensah, the former Deputy Executive Director of NSA, also remains on the run as authorities intensify their search for suspects linked to the fraudulent payroll scheme.
