THE TASK force set up by the Minister of Education to exorcise a targeted 30,000 ghost names from the payroll of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has so far expunged 10,000 names, so says Professor Ameyaw Akumfi.
The minister disclosed during an exclusive interview by this reporter that he believes a "huge syndicate" is operating through the maintenance of ghost names to siphon money from the service.
The task force is said to be following strong leads that point to the criminal collusion between a certain staff of the Accounting Departments of the GES, the Controller and Accountant General's Department and the banks.
Nevertheless, Professor Akumfi maintains that "District Directors are going to be held responsible for any ghost names that appear on any payrolls."
The minister explained that a District Director is responsible for checking the payroll to ascertain its authenticity, hence their liability for any anomaly.
"They have been told in clear terms that they are responsible for ghost names appearing on their payrolls," the minister said.
He said he has been spending so much energy on the exercise that "prosecution will definitely come in after the exercise."
Meanwhile the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), in high enthusiasm to help the Ministry of Education crack down on the perpetrators of ghost names, has dispatched a letter to the minister requesting specific information on which it could get to work.
Sources at the SFO say among the information being sought are:
1. How 30,000 ghost names were placed on the payroll of GES without detection, despite internal control mechanisms.
2. Ascertain the total loss of money to the State through fraud.
3. Find out the officers of other organisations who assumed the names and benefited from the unlawful salary incomes.
4. Suggest appropriate mechanisms to forestall future occurrences.
The SFO is also saying that in order to ensure a satisfactory conduct of the investigative exercise, it would be happy to have the list of the ghost names, their staff numbers, management units and ranks supplied by the minister.
Unfortunately, nine weeks after the dispatch of the letter, the minister has not been able to reply, "due to pressure of work."
By conservative estimates, even the 10,000 deleted so far could earn the ministry up to ?2billion a month, using the hypothesis that each teacher receives ?200,000 as monthly salary.
Teachers receive between ?300,000 and ?1 million a month depending on the rank. Prof. Ameyaw Akumfi said he was alarmed when about 13 teachers at New Edubiase admitted to having benefited from cheques belonging to ghost teachers.
"Before they could be apprehended they absconded, obviously on a tip off," he said.
The present task force, according to the minister, is working anonymously.
