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The Fourth Estate has taken notice of a press release jointly issued by Mr Osei Assibey Antwi, the immediate past Director-General of the National Service Authority (NSA), and Mr Mustapha Ussif, former Executive Director of the NSA.
The press release by the former heads of the NSA makes four main assertions against The Fourth Estate’s recent investigations that exposed the presence of ‘ghost names’ within the NSA database. The press release mainly asserts the following:
a. The Fourth Estate’s projected figures on the number of ghost names in the NSA database do not account for the cohorts of nursing and teacher trainee postings
b. The presence of overaged persons, duplicated names, photos of foreigners, fake index numbers created in the name of tertiary institutions and fake ID and manipulated biometric data are all mere entry data errors, which are eventually weeded out during regional verifications.
c. The Fourth Estate faltered in its journalistic ethics by failing to verify its data from the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPPS).
d. That throughout their tenure, they committed to a robust enrollment and verification mechanism to reduce unscrupulous enrollment.
Before we respond to the specifics of the claims contained in the release by the NSA former bosses, we wish to state categorically that the gravamen of our investigations is the evidence of the existence of thousands of ghost names in the NSA database, which leads to potential loss of millions of cedis to the State. This is a fact that cannot be denied.
We now respond to their specific assertions as follows:
- Number of service personnel and evidence of ghost names:
Early in 2024, The Fourth Estate obtained credible evidence about the ghost names in the database of the NSA and commenced investigations. The investigations were mainly aimed at saving the public purse that was being drained through the phenomenon of ghost names. As part of the investigations, The Fourth Estate took several steps to confirm information relating to the number of personnel posted and personnel verified for national service, specifically for the years 2020-2024. Later analysis pointed to the fact that discrepancies in figures and the potential for ghost names existed prior to 2020. Consequently, we included the years prior to 2020 in our analysis.
The Fourth Estate’s efforts to secure data and the NSA’s refusal to disclose
On October 23, 2024, we submitted a formal Right to Information (RTI) letter to the NSA requesting these details (See copy of letter below).
Despite the fact that the NSA could generate the requested information by a click of a button in their so-called robust common platform, they refused to grant the request. Weeks later, The Fourth Estate submitted an internal appeal on the request as required by the RTI Act. Again, the information was not provided. Subsequently, The Fourth Estate requested an interview with the leadership of the NSA. Apart letters sent to the Director-General and his two deputies, separate interview request letters were addressed to the Head of Deployment, Head of Finance and Head of Administration of the NSA. The Director-General responded to our interview request indicating that he was on the field and thus, was not available for the interview until after December 10, 2024. We could not also have the opportunity to interview all the other heads. Meanwhile, the NSA had sent a directive to its staff ordering them not to disclose information on postings and enrollment figures to any group seeking that information. We wondered and are still wondering why information on the number of service personnel would be a secret that could not be disclosed.
We, therefore, request that, in the interest of transparency and accountability, the former heads who are disputing the figures should put out their actual data. In doing so, for the sake of transparency and to prove that, contrary to our claims, there were no ghost names, we request that the data be disaggregated as follows:
- Total personnel posted to government (subvented) institutions whose allowances are paid by the government and
- Total personnel posted to private institutions whose allowance is paid by their respective institutions.
The Fourth Estate wishes to emphatically state that the NSA database contained thousands of ghost names. This is proven in the ensuing sections of this response.
- So-called data entry errors
In the statement of the former heads of the NSA, they claim that the presence of overaged persons, duplicated names, photos of foreigners, fake index numbers created in the name of tertiary institutions and fake ID and manipulated biometric data are all mere entry data errors. This is absurd. How on earth can an institution have thousands of fake ID cards, duplicated names, fake index numbers created in the name of universities inputted into a so-called robust IT platform and claim that all those are data entry errors? In any case, how come persons associated with all these fake cards and identities ended up being posted to specific institutions across the country? Did the persons post themselves or were they posted by the NSA? If indeed the pattern of thousands of personnel having ages that are in 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s in the system was due to data entry errors, did the same people also mistakenly use fake ID cards, even as the NSA claims that the only card eligible is the Ghana card? How about the creation and use of fake index numbers for various tertiary institutions?
For instance, in the screenshot below (as it is in the case of thousands of others), 82-year-old Mahamadu Ali, a so-called UDS graduate, was posted to Anyinabrim Anglican School in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region. Is that a data entry error too?
- So-called regional verification that clears ghost names
The press release from the former NSA bosses suggests that their system allows for just anybody to create a fake index number, use a fake ID, a fake date of birth and claim to be a graduate of any tertiary school to enroll. And that after such enrollment, the NSA will actually post such persons to various places across the country. They then argue that such persons cannot do their services because they would be blocked during regional verification.
This is another absurd argument. In any case, The Fourth Estate has evidence that proves that there are persons with fake ID cards or even no ID cards who sailed through the supposed regional verification, went through all the processes and got paid.
We present below examples of these from the NSA database.
Regional director’s confirmation of malpractice in monthly payment validation
The statement by the former two NSA directors claims that payment of service personnel is only made after monthly validations that confirm that personnel were at their respective places of posting. While this is true in principle, evidence obtained by The Fourth Estate shows that this is not followed. Indeed, Mr Okatakyie Amankwaa Afrifa, the Western Regional Director, who doubled at some point as the director for the Western North region, confirmed non-compliance with the said validation principles in an interview with The Fourth Estate. He told The Fourth Estate that each month, when giving approvals regarding the number of persons who were present at their respective places of posting in the region, he noticed about 1,243 would have been pre-approved in the system by unknown persons. He said he had complained to management on several occasions about the anomaly but the practice continued.
- Prevalence of ghost names in NSA data
The statement by the former NSA heads and commentary by other people seek to suggest that there were no ghost names and that The Fourth Estate’s claims are false. We wish to emphatically state that the NSA data is replete with ghost names. Indeed, in January 2024, the immediate past director who jointly signed the statement in question wrote to the Ministry of Finance requesting for GHS 13.6million to undertake an exercise that will help clear at least about 5,000 ghost names which will lead to savings of GHS 42.9 million in one year. If there are no ghost names, what was this request, as recent as 2024, intended for?
Further affirming the prevalence of ghost names in the NSA system is the recent revelation by the government that the previous leadership of the NSA had requested for the payment of 180,030 personnel whereas a head count established that there were 98,145 active personnel. This revealed a difference of 81,885.
It is important to emphasise the point that not all service personnel are posted to government-subvented institutions, and are, therefore, paid by the government. Thus, the request for payment of 180,030 could not have included other thousands of personnel posted to private institutions.
- Why didn’t The Fourth Estate go to GhIPPS?
In their statement, they accuse The Fourth Estate of not doing what’s required of a professional media because they claim we did not go to GhIPPS to seek payment data.
This claim is shocking and dishonest. This is because they ought to know that as part of our investigations, we engaged with GhIPPS. During our investigations, we held a meeting with the entire leadership of GhIPPS about NSA allowance payment data as part of our efforts to protect the public purse. Following the meeting, we sent an RTI request to GhIPPS for the payment data. GhIPPS then wrote to the immediate past director-general of the NSA, about our request and to seek the consent of the NSA for the release of the data requested (See copy of GhIPPS letter below). It is, therefore, disingenuous for the same recipient of the GhIPPS letter to seek to berate The Fourth Estate for not engaging GhIPPS in this investigation.
GhIPPs later wrote to The Fourth Estate denying access to the information requested, citing potential damage to their financial interests and the breach of the confidential relationship they have with the NSA.
- Conclusion
To conclude, The Fourth Estate states emphatically that the NSA database is replete with thousands of ghost names. The existence of these ghost names has led to the potential loss of millions of cedis to the State.
