It’s untenable – CLOGSAG responds to deputy finance minister’s explanation for GHC1.1m paid to 3 ghosts

The Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG) has described as untenable the explanation by a Deputy Minister for Finance on the payment of over GHC1.1 million as salaries to some 3 individuals described as ‘ghosts’ by the Auditor General.

According to CLOGSAG, John Kumah Ampontuah’s attribution of the payment to a payroll mishap cannot be justified.

In a statement signed by the Executive Secretary of CLOGSAG, Isaac Bampoe Addo, the association said the 3 individuals whose identity was given by the deputy minister as staff of the Ghana Revenue Authority seconded to the ministry of finance should not have received the said payment in the first place.

“CLOGSAG finds the Minister’s excuse untenable since seconded staff from the GRA are already on the GRA payroll, thus there was no need to make an effort to pay them again outside the nominal roll of Ministry of Finance," parts of the statement said.

The association noted that the explanation by the minister rather raises further questions about whether due processes were followed in the secondment of the three persons from GRA to the ministry of finance.

“Was their secondment approved by the Office of the Head of Civil, as required by the Civil Service Act?” they questioned.

The association emphasised that it is waiting for further details on the matter as there is a need for truthfulness in such a situation.

The Auditor General’s report for 2021 captured three persons as having received in excess of GHC1.1 million as salaries on the books of the ministry of finance while their records as employees of the ministry could not be traced.

“We noted that, three persons were paid a total of GH¢1,112,895.96 as salaries for the period January 2020 to December 2021, but we could not trace their personal files and names on the nominal roll of the Ministry,” the report said.

However, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, John Ampontuah Kumah, in a recent Facebook post disclosed that the state has recovered the amount of GH¢1,112,896.00 from the three individuals.

“Kindly note that the funds paid were recovered when the attention of the Ministry was drawn to this anomaly,” John Kumah said.

Explaining the circumstances leading to the recipients of the payment being tagged as ghosts, which he described as an anomaly, the deputy minister said the situation was due to a payroll misunderstanding.

“The three ghost names are personnel seconded from GRA, for whom there was some misunderstanding about which payroll they belonged 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,” he wrote.

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