YEA chase over 16,000 ghosts

16,839 names have been deleted from the payroll of the Youth Employment Agency after an audit by the agency revealed their records have been tainted with fraud, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Justice Frimpong has disclosed.

He said at a news conference Wednesday that the deletion has saved the Agency more than 20 million cedis.

The deletion became necessary after the Agency detected some financial malpractice which led to the suspension of the payment of allowances of beneficiaries.

Justice Frimpong mentioned that the audit detected that some people who have ended their service with the Agency but are still been paid by the agency

Some of the affected persons also had no appointment letters while some of the letters did not have signature of CEO.

Some letters had the signatures of the CEO faked, Justice Frimpong said. The employees on some schemes were also found to have been above the YEA’s age requirements

He revealed his commitment to implementing the recommendations of the audit report which includes a call to strengthen the internal control mechanisms.

There will be pre-monthly validations before allowances are paid. All payments are to pass through the internal audit for pre-auditing before payment is effected.