Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has sounded a strong warning to the newly appointed leadership of the National Service Scheme Authority (NSA), urging them not to retain the existing IT platform and its contractor.
Braimah, in a scathing critique of the system, revealed that the current IT infrastructure has been riddled with major flaws, allowing fraudulent activities such as fake IDs, manipulated identity numbers, and even registrations of individuals aged 80 and 90 years old.
Expressing his concerns, he cautioned the new management against making what he described as a “disastrous mistake” of maintaining the same faulty system.
“I hope that the new NSS Leadership will not dare make the disastrous mistake of maintaining/retaining the current IT platform and contractor. If they do, we will let you know more! How do you justify the continuous use of a system that allows and allowed just anything – Fake IDs, No IDs, Manipulated IDs, Fake Index Numbers, 90 and 80-year-olds. No way,” Braimah wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday, February 19, 2025.
The Fourth Estate first uncovered the ghost names scandal in November 2024 but was initially prevented from publishing its findings due to an ex-parte injunction secured by the NSA.
However, the court later lifted the injunction, allowing the report to be published. The investigation covered records from 2017 to 2023, including the 2024 national service year.
Mahama orders investigation into NSS Fraud
President John Dramani Mahama has ordered a thorough investigation into the discovery of 81,885 suspected ghost names on the National Service Scheme (NSS) payroll.
A statement from the Presidency, signed by the President’s Spokesperson, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, confirmed that the anomalies were uncovered during a recent headcount of active National Service personnel.
The exercise, initiated by the Ministry of Finance, was aimed at verifying the actual number of personnel before clearing allowance arrears dating back to August 2024.
“The Ministry of Finance has, upon the completion of the headcount, released an amount of GHS 226,019,224 to cover allowance arrears for 98,145 actual National Service Personnel,” the statement read.
It further revealed a massive discrepancy, noting that the previous NSS management had presented a payroll of 180,030 names for allowance payments in 2024—a figure that has now been slashed by 81,885 following the headcount.
