Today in History: How did ghost names end up on government's payroll? - Catholic Bishop asks

Koforidua Diocese Catholic Bishop, Most Reverend Joseph Afrifa-Agyekum questioned the possibility of ghost names on government's payroll.

He asked “My question is, how did the names get there and who are the directors or who are the officers who are supposed to have known that these are not our staff? In the long round, who is collecting the money at the end of the day. So, when you clear these names what happens to those who managed the get the names there?”

Read the full story originally published on April 18, 2022, by GhanaWeb

Koforidua Diocese Catholic Bishop, Most Reverend Joseph Afrifa-Agyekum, has wondered how the government's payroll gets filled up with 'ghost' names.

He further questioned who the recipients of the monies meant for these 'ghosts' go to.

In an interview with TV3’s Eastern Region correspondent, Yvonne Neequaye on Sunday, April 17, the man of God said, he's always taken aback anytime he hears that the government's payroll is full and some names were being cleared out of the system.

“With the ghost names, I am really surprised that every now and then we come up with this same issue that we have cleared some thousands of names from the payroll.

“My question is, how did the names get there and who are the directors or who are the officers who are supposed to have known that these are not our staff? In the long round, who is collecting the money at the end of the day. So, when you clear these names what happens to those who managed the get the names there?” Most Reverend Joseph Afrifa-Agyekum quizzed.

He called for the arrest and prosecution of officers, and other culprits who input ghost names into the government payroll.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has said the government is working on taking off all non-existent or ghost names from its payroll.

This he said forms part of measures by the government to cut down on expenditure.

"Government will conclude ongoing measures to eliminate “ghost” workers from the Government payroll by end of December 2022," Ken Ofori-Atta said at a press conference on March 24, 2022.