How 2 accountants stole $250K a year from Korle-Bu – CEO explains

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Opoku Ware Ampomah, has asserted that one of the major challenges of the public service of Ghana is holding people accountable.

Speaking in an interview on Citi FM’s "The Point of View" programme, Dr. Ware Ampomah said that it is very difficult to punish staff of the hospital when they do something wrong because of the rules of the public service.

“Unfortunately, in the public sector, it takes a lot to even fire a person. You can query them, you can talk to them, you try various means... that’s one of the challenges,” he said.

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The CEO recalled how two staff of Korle-Bu’s accounts department were caught stealing $250,000 every year from the hospital.

He said that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) was invited into the matter and they arrested the two accused staff in 2015.

He added that since then, the two accountants have not been prosecuted yet and the case is still in court.

“I can tell you on this platform that we had a situation where some accounts staff were proffering money from branches and units when I was head (sic)... to the extent that a tune of about $250,000 a year (was stolen).

“And this is something that we managed to find out. So, EOCO had to come in to arrest them. And this arrest was done in 2015, the prosecution started in 2016. The case has not been finished, as you speak,” he said.

He added, “So, that’s some of the challenges that you have, because, unfortunately, the judicial system is not as (sic)... that is what creates that impunity. Even during COVID, there was a case of some staff who were doing things with the vaccines authorised and all that. And when we tried to query them, they went to court, placed an injunction on the disciplinary process.”

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Meanwhile, catch up on GhanaWeb's interview with Dr. Nana Ato Arthur, Head of the Local Government Service, as he explains the procedures involved in undertaking projects that are originally government projects. He spoke with Etsey Atisu on The Lowdown:





Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.