Payroll Fraud: Questions Over GHC427 Million Paid to One Civil Servant in 29 Months

For 29 months, a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence received over GHS427 million in unearned salaries – an average of more than GHS14 million per month.

Frank Oliver Kpodo was at the time serving as Director of Procurement at the Ministry of Defence.

His unearned salaries featured prominently in a recent report by the Auditor-General on the processes by which government employees were paid from January 2023 to June 2025. The main objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of internal mechanisms set up to ensure only legitimate employees are paid their rightful salaries.

The report details a near-broken system leaking money to thousands of civil servants, most of whom had done little to no work over the period.

The Auditor-General reported that more than 6,000 government employees received more than GHS800 million in unearned salaries, but Mr Kpodo alone allegedly received more than half of this amount – that is, GHS427 million. 

This exceeds the budget allocation of the Transport Ministry, which is GHS151 million.

Frank Oliver Kpodo’s trail of audit red flag

Mr Kpodo worked previously as head of procurement at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in 2013. Before then, he was at the Ministry of Health, his LinkedIn profile says. In 2018, Mr Kpodo moved to the Ministry of Defence, where his role as Director of Procurement drew considerable scrutiny and consternation at a recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

Three weeks ago, officials from the ministry appeared before the committee over a GHS4.8 million contract for six SUVs intended for border surveillance and election monitoring.

Although a Stores Receipt Advice (SRA) had been issued to confirm delivery, checks revealed the vehicles had never been supplied, raising concerns among members of the PAC over falsified documentation on the undelivered vehicles.

They called for Mr Kpodo to be interdicted from his current role at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as the Director of Finance and Administration. They also recommended his prosecution.

In his Payroll Audit Report for 2025, the Auditor-General recommended that the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department should “immediately delete” Mr Kpodo’s name from the payroll, along with those of some 6,000 other individuals who received monies for no work done. 

“Principal Spending Officers should discontinue the validation of these individuals and recover the total amount of GH¢801,808,427.04 as unearned salaries paid to them, failing which the Principal Spending Officers and the Validators should pay,” the Auditor-General recommended.

The Principal Spending Officers in Ministries are the Chief Directors

The Fourth Estate’s checks reveal that Dr Evans Agbeme Dzikum was the Chief Director of the Ministry of Defence for the period Mr Kpodo received the over GHS427 million.

A financial analyst, Nana Kwaku Amankwah Appiah, told The Fourth Estate that Ghana’s payroll system goes through multiple channels before payments are made.

Due to this, he said he was surprised that Mr Kpodo was able to receive hundreds of millions for over two years without detection.

“For such payments to go on like that, I suspect there might be others benefiting from the amount,” he said. “It might not be only the individual benefiting. I wouldn’t be surprised that there is a chain of people who share this money every month.”

Lack of political will

Kobina Ata-Bedu, a procurement expert with nearly three decades of experience, told The Fourth Estate in an interview that Ghana does not lack laws. But the problem is with the lack of political will to prosecute individuals who violate those laws.

“Until we start punishing people and making them pay a dear price, nothing will change,” he said.

He added that the Principal Spending Officer bears the ultimate responsibility for any procurement and payroll infraction.

Nana Kwaku Appiah emphasized that any internal auditor caught engaging in payroll fraud must be “declared a criminal. The professional needs to be reported. He must be handed over to the criminal prosecution institutions.”

Gatekeepers are culpable

A Development Economist at the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Professor Peter Quartey, also told The Fourth Estate that payroll fraud has been a decades-old systemic problem in Ghana.

“The gatekeepers are culpable. We need to stop this. If we don’t pursue these issues, if we don’t enforce [the laws], and we let people get away with it, then the figures will continue to increase, the scandals will continue to be perpetrated every now and then,” he said. 

Prof Quartey said that, from his assessment, the situation is more prevalent in Ghana than in other countries.

“What software are other countries using that we can adopt to minimise this kind of fraud?” he asked.

“Because usually, it’s an orchestrated system. Maybe [Mr Kpodo is] the lead, but there may be other people who assist him in doing what he’s doing.”

Prof Quartey added that he is surprised Mr Kpodo is still holding an office at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources even after what ensued at the Public Accounts Committee.  

“I remember hearing that he should be interdicted. So, if he’s still at post, that for me is a big problem,” he said. “We are a developing country. There are so many areas where money is needed to develop our country.

Many are dying because we couldn’t buy hospital beds. We couldn’t find medicine. We have no doctors around. We should not allow just a few people to distribute the coffers while the rest of the citizens struggle to survive.”

Denial

When The Fourth Estate contacted Mr Kpodo, he described the audit findings as “worrying and surprising,” adding that he could not “imagine how that can happen”.

He said his salaries were processed through the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department with pay slips that can be independently verified.

He insisted he was unaware of any irregularities and could not explain how such payments could have occurred. He added that the validation of salaries at the Ministry of Defence is handled by the Human Resource unit and the Chief Director’s office.

He also told The Fourth Estate that no one had reached out to him from the Audit Service.