The 3 'ghosts' paid GHC1.1m in salaries by Ministry of Finance

The Auditor General’s report for the year 2021 amongst other things, unravelled various financial infractions on the accounts of some Ministries, Departments, and other Agencies (MDAs).

As part of the report, the A-G’s office disclosed that the ministry of finance paid a total amount of GH¢1,112,896.00 as salaries to three persons whose records could not be found as employees of the ministry.

The question that has since occupied the minds of several Ghanaians is whether the three are indeed not employees of the ministry, how they got their names on the ministry’s payroll, and whether they are actually existing individuals in the first place.

With all these questions begging for answers, a Deputy Minister for Finance, John Ampontuah Kumah, has sought to set the records straight on the circumstances surrounding the payments.

While doing so, the Deputy Minister has confirmed that recipients of the payment are actual living beings and not ‘ghosts’ as has been ascribed to by many critics.

The minister went on to confirm that the state has since recovered the paid amount following the detection of what he described as an anomaly arising from a payroll misunderstanding.

“Kindly note that the funds paid were recovered when the attention of the Ministry was drawn to this anomaly.

“The three Ghost names are personnel seconded from GRA, for whom there was some misunderstanding about which payroll they belonged to for the period of the secondment. The amounts paid have been recovered from the GRA as indicated and the ministry will in due time, share more details,” John Kumah wrote in a Facebook post.

Who are these supposed ‘ghosts’?

The report names the three as Allotey Eamon James, Kwakye Nana Yaw Asiedu and Adam Habibu.

Meanwhile, one of the persons who was captured as part of the three ‘ghosts’ has also broken his silence on the matter.

Adam Habibu who according to the report was paid GHC370,734.16 for a period of two years has described the appearance of his name in the report as a situation that is regular in the country’s payroll recording system.

“My attention has been drawn to Citi FM news and other social media outlets about Auditor-General's report where my name was mentioned as one of the ghost persons on payroll.

“While this may be painful, let's not condemn our State institutions like the Auditor-General or the Courts when such incidents occur. Let's help them do their work properly by assisting them rectify anomalies in our system. It is no news that Ghana has challenges with our records and documentation. Most people will remember how judgement debts were paid purely because of bad records keeping and documentation,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

While not being specific in addressing the allegation, Mr Adam stated that he was never contacted about the findings of the report and will, at the appropriate time, address the allegation.

“In this instance, l was never contacted neither was my attention drawn to any audit report. I do hope it was an oversight that can be resolved. I was out of town on official duty and just returned tonight. God willing, we will get the detailed reports to respond to and resolve the matter,” he stated.

He however urged for support for the work of the Auditor General saying, “we will cooperate with the Auditor-General to resolve the issue God willing. Thanks to the Auditor-General's team for drawing our attention to some anomalies we may not have been aware of.”

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