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Deputy Director-General of Operations at the National Service Authority (NSA), Fuseini Donkor, says the Authority has saved Ghana nearly GH¢900 million after introducing stricter controls and removing ghost names from its payroll system.
Speaking on Metro TV Mr Donkor said the reforms became necessary following intense public scrutiny and allegations of fraud that had damaged the institution’s reputation.
“There was so much pressure,” he said, explaining that even the Finance Minister now closely reviews the Authority’s figures before approving releases.
According to him, the controversy surrounding ghost names also affected the confidence of development partners, with some donors temporarily suspending funding support for NSA programmes.
“Most of them actually held on to funding for most of our programmes,” he stated, adding that the Mastercard Foundation remained among the few partners that continued supporting the Authority.
Mr Donkor disclosed that government intervention became necessary to sustain some of the Authority’s agricultural projects.
“The President had to personally get involved by ordering the Minister of Agriculture to give us the farm inputs that we had to use for the whole of the 2025 crop season,” he said.
He noted that the current management team was specifically tasked with restoring confidence and stability within the institution after the scandal.
According to him, reforms introduced since then have drastically reduced wasteful expenditure.
“It will shock you to know that from an amount of GH¢1.5 billion that we were spending in 2024 on allowances alone, we’ve cut it down to several hundred million as I speak to you,” he revealed.
“So a savings of about GH¢900 million have been made just through prudent blocking of ghost names and cutting out every loophole that people used to enter the system.”
Mr Donkor explained that the Authority’s upgraded digital platform now creates an audit trail for every activity, making it easier to detect any attempt to manipulate the system.
“The system is in such a way that on its own it cannot do anything. Human beings have to input,” he said. “When you compromise it, the only thing the system can do is leave a trace.”
He further disclosed that an earlier attempt to recover GH¢560 million linked to ghost names eventually increased to GH¢2.2 billion after a forensic audit was conducted on the system.
“It was after our forensic audit of the system itself that it jumped to GH¢2.2 billion,” he stated.
Mr Donkor also said the Authority’s new verification measures have significantly reduced questionable entries submitted by tertiary institutions for national service postings.
According to him, while institutions submitted about 156,000 names last year, only 97,000 applicants successfully passed the enhanced verification process.
“The about 60,000 people, they didn’t even show up at all. So those are the people you can classify as ghost names,” he explained.
He added that applicants must now pass multiple identity checks linked to their Ghana Card details before completing registration.
“Even if one letter changes there, the system blocks you,” he noted.
Beyond the reforms, Mr Donkor said the NSA is increasingly focusing on agriculture as part of efforts to create employment opportunities for graduates while supporting Ghana’s food security agenda.
He revealed that more than 10,000 graduates voluntarily applied to join the Authority’s agricultural programme during the last posting cycle.
“At Papao farm right now, we have about 125 personnel there actively involved in the agri-value chain,” he said.
The Authority, he added, is expanding poultry and crop farming projects nationwide, although challenges relating to equipment and accommodation for personnel still persist.
“The biggest challenge for us is the equipment. We don’t want to take the graduates there where things that they’ve learned in school, they can’t get the equipment to actually work with,” he stated.
Mr Donkor maintained that under the current administration of the Authority, the issue of ghost names would not resurface.
“One thing I can say for sure is that we will not go back to the issue of ghost names again,” he assured.
“There will not be an issue of ghost names again, especially not under our watch.”
Source: Omanghana.com
