A technical and forensic audit conducted by the Auditor-General has uncovered that former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, was enrolled as a national service person while already serving as a full-time salaried public officer.

According to the audit report, Mrs Oware-Aboagye was manually uploaded into the National Service Scheme system on March 16, 2021, based on her Master of Public Administration degree from KNUST.

Despite being ineligible under the NSA’s statutory rules, she was placed on the payroll and her full allowance of GH¢6,708.48 (GH¢559.04 per month for 12 months) was deducted and paid to a vendor through the “MarketPlace” platform for a purported credit facility.

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Per the report, the irregular enrolment was approved by then-Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, on April 22, 2021, although the report notes that he lacked the authority to approve such a PIN assignment.

Mrs Oware-Aboagye was posted to the Koblimahagu Sobriya Primary School in Tamale but failed to report for duty or undergo any biometric validation, yet still appeared on the payroll.

The audit further revealed that she was among 4,556 individuals who were improperly enrolled as service personnel, leading to an irregular expenditure of GH¢899,349.67.

Of these, only 19 individuals met the basic criteria for validation and approval.

Investigators attributed the anomaly to manual overrides, weak system controls, and a lack of automated checks to prevent dual enrolment of salaried public officers as national service personnel.

They also pointed to the misuse of the NSA’s “MarketPlace” platform, which was used to deduct and divert allowances without proof of delivery of goods or services.

The Auditor-General’s report warned that such actions breached public trust, compromised the integrity of the National Service Scheme’s deployment system, and opened avenues for fraud.

It recommended that the amounts involved be recovered, and that Ms. Oware-Aboagye and other responsible officials, including Osei Assibey Antwi and Eric Nyarko, be surcharged with the full amount at the prevailing Bank of Ghana interest rate.

The report also advised that disciplinary actions be taken against officers who bypassed standard protocols and that automated checks be instituted to block future instances of double enrolment of public officers.