YEA payroll fraud was cooked up by management - Minority

The Minority in Parliament has accused the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA); Justin Kodua Frimpong and his management of cooking up figures that allegedly said it detected massive fraud in the payroll of beneficiaries that uncovered about GH¢50 million and got about 16,839 ghost names deleted from the system.

The YEA had earlier confirmed that it had deleted 16,839 names from its payroll. The Agency said it took the decision after its internal audit showed that thousands of beneficiaries of YEA were being fraudulently paid.

The agency stated that the rot amounted to over GH¢50 million.

According to the minority, it’s impossible to pay two or more beneficiaries through the same E-zwich numbers and that management of “YEA is either ignorant or only engaged in baseless cheap propaganda” as beneficiaries are only registered biometrically which makes it easier to identify them.

Also, they claim no beneficiary of the agency is ever paid through cash because all amounts from the agency are paid through an E-zwich biometric system and the remaining into their ADB bank accounts.

Addressing the press, Kobla Mensah Woyome, MP for South Tongu said the computerised system put in place by the previous management cannot be manipulated for fraudulent activities hence the allegation by the new management that the fraud occurred under the erstwhile government is questionable.

The minority therefore has challenged management of YEA to produce and publish ghost names and the said internal report by the Internal Audit Agency which they said existed on the payroll of the agency.

“We are challenging the leadership to produce the names, E-zwich numbers, modules, youth employment numbers, regions and districts for the said ghost names for the Public to check if beneficiaries cannot be traced to the four cycles of the YEA”.

“We are further challenging management to publish the said audit report of the internal audit agency it keeps referring to, together with the written responses of staff who were cited or implicated in the said report”, Kobla Woyome said.