NSS Scandal: Methuselahs and toddlers were paid GH¢ 1.97 million as service personnel– Audit report

The recent audit report into the “ghost names” scandal at the National Service Authority (NSA) makes damning revelations of how persons whose ages could not have made them national service personnel were registered and paid.

According to the report, exclusively seen by The Fourth Estate, personnel aged over 100 years, and some as old as 1027 years, were paid a total of GH¢ 115,037.24. Others between zero and 10 years were paid a total of GH¢ 889,977.77 through 1570 transactions. Cumulatively, persons aged between zero and 17 years were a total of GH¢1,313,114.29. While those aged between ages of 61 and 100 years were paid GH¢ 545,401.51

“Records showed negative ages, such as -3,968 years, enrolled and paid allowances,” the audit report revealed.

The table below presents the specifics of the age groups, number of transactions per age group, amount paid per age group and group summaries of total payment.

Source: NSA Audit Report

These findings from the audit report confirm the details of The Fourth Estate’s investigations published some months ago, which reported that the NSA’s database was inflated with over-aged persons who had been registered and posted as service personnel.  

For instance, the investigations revealed that 93-year-old Nimatu Salifu was listed as a UDS graduate. She deployed to Kpiyagi D/A Primary School in the Upper West Region in the 2022/2023 service year. In the same service year, 91-year-old Ruth Abdulai, supposedly a Development Studies graduate from UDS, was posted to Adakura Primary School in the Upper East Region.

Following the investigations, the then leadership of the NSA mounted a spirited defence against The Fourth Estate’s findings.

For example, the authority issued a statement on December 16, 2024, debunking the allegations of ghost names in the NSA database. The statement said, among other things:

“Following the series of publications with bizarre allegations against the Authority, the Management of the Authority conducted a quick review of the system and found all the allegations to be untrue.”

A former Deputy Executive Director of the NSA, who served between February 2017 and September 2018, Henry Nana Boakye, moved from one media house to another, accusing The Fourth Estate of having done a “shoddy work” and “lazy journalism”. This, according to him, was because, contrary to the claims by The Fourth Estate, the NSA system was capable of preventing the claims of ghost names as revealed by the publication.

Background

The Fourth Estate’s exposé on the NSS Scandal, published earlier this year, revealed the padding of ghost names in the NSA database and manipulation of posting processes, which caused the government to pay millions of cedis to service personnel that only existed on paper. Beyond revealing the existence of ghost names in the NSA database, the publication raised critical questions about value-for-money, data security, and institutional integrity of the CSMP/Metric App.

The findings from The Fourth Estate’s investigations prompted the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to conduct their own investigations, which revealed that the top-level executives of the NSA and their private sector vendors, in a scheme, had mismanaged over 548 million Ghana cedis through Ghost names. The investigation prompted public demand for probity and accountability.

In response, the Office of the President, through the Ministry of Youth and Empowerment, directed an immediate suspension of the CMSP/Metric App to allow for a comprehensive technical and forensic review.