Omanghana
Twenty-three Ghana Immigration Service officers stationed at Elubo have repaid GH¢124,552 in excess salary arrears, but the Ministry of Interior is challenging a recommendation that they also pay interest on the money.
Interior Minister Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka confirmed the recovery when he appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday, October 20, 2026. He said the entire principal amount had been deposited into the Auditor-General’s recoveries account.
The overpayment arose from an error in calculating arrears following the officers’ upgrade to Assistant Immigration Control Officer I, effective July 18, 2023. Their payments were instead calculated from March 2023, covering a period before the upgrade took effect.
A state payroll audit uncovered the discrepancy, which was subsequently captured in the Auditor-General’s report. Auditors recommended recovering the excess payments together with interest at the prevailing Bank of Ghana rate.
Muntaka, however, argued that requiring the officers to pay interest would be unfair because the overpayment resulted from an administrative error rather than any deliberate action by the beneficiaries.
According to the minister, the officers neither submitted false information nor attempted to defraud the state. He explained that the arrears arrived in their bank accounts as lump-sum payments, making it difficult for them to identify the calculation error or determine precisely which months the money covered.
The ministry’s objection therefore concerns the additional interest sought by auditors, with the principal amount already fully recovered.
During the hearing, the committee, chaired by Mrs. Abena Osei-Asare, advised the ministry to consider adopting a self-accounting model to strengthen payroll administration and help prevent similar errors.
The interest recommendation remains disputed as the ministry seeks to distinguish the officers’ responsibility to return the excess payments from liability for an error they did not cause.
Source: Omanghana
