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The Governing Board of the National Service Authority (NSA) has suspended the ongoing national service enrollment exercise for the 2025/2026 service year.
The move follows an emergency board meeting held on Friday, June 20, 2025.
The board’s decision comes in response to a directive from the Minister for Youth Development and Empowerment, George Opare Addo, acting on the authority of President John Mahama.
The directive, dated June 17, 2025, called for the immediate suspension of the NSA’s controversial digital systems, including the widely used Metric App and the Central System Management Portal (CSMP), due to growing concerns over irregularities and a loss of public confidence.
A statement signed by the NSA Board Chairman, Emmanuel Kai Mintah, announced that all activities related to the national service enrolment process—posting, validation, and registration—have been put on hold.
Management staff, regional directors, district managers, and service personnel have been directed to stop using the digital platforms and await further instructions.
“All payments, renewals, or engagements connected to these systems are to cease immediately,” the statement said.
The NSA further called on all its personnel, regional and district directors, and national service staff to fully cooperate with the Ghana Audit Service, the Auditor-General, and National Security as they embark on a comprehensive forensic and systems audit.
The NSA Board said it would provide all necessary documentation and personnel to support a biometric revalidation and database clean-up exercise as part of the broader efforts to restore credibility to its operations.
“Please address this matter promptly and ensure that all actions align with the directives of the President and the oversight ministry,” the statement added.
This sweeping decision follows The Fourth Estate’s investigative reports that revealed troubling findings about ghost names in the NSA’s Central Management System and the influence of private contractors operating critical components of the Authority’s digital infrastructure. The Metric App, introduced to validate service personnel and track attendance, was flagged as a central point of concern in the exposé.
Sources within the NSA said the long-standing internal objections to the system were ignored by management until the release of the investigation forced higher-level scrutiny.
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