Auditor-General exposes how Gifty Oware illegally enrolled herself as NSS personnel

The latest report by the Auditor-General has revealed that Mrs Gifty Oware-Mensah, former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), was unlawfully enrolled as a National Service Person (NSP) while simultaneously serving as a full-time salaried public officer, a direct breach of the Scheme’s regulations.

According to the technical and forensic audit on the CSMP and Metric App of the National Service Authority, covering the 2021/2022 service year, Mrs Oware-Mensah (formerly known as Gifty Oware-Aboagye) was manually added to the NSS payroll despite holding an executive position at the institution.

Her enrolment, which was based on a Master of Public Administration degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), violated both the National Service Act and internal regulations that prohibit public officers from receiving national service allowances.

The audit revealed that Mrs Oware-Mensah was posted to the Koblimahagu Sobriya Primary School in Tamale but failed to report to her assigned post. Further checks showed that she was manually uploaded into the NSS system by Adjei Robert Nii Laryea Kumah, an officer of the National Service Authority (NSA).

Additionally, the audit found that her Personal Identification Number (PIN) was approved on 22 April 2021 by Mustapha Ussif, who had been appointed Minister for Youth and Sports on 12 January 2021 and therefore lacked the requisite authority to authorise the PIN approval.

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She also did not complete any of the fourteen (14) mandatory biometric and physical validations required for all personnel. Despite this, she received allowances totalling GH¢6,708.48, which were automatically deducted and paid to a vendor through the NSS “MarketPlace” platform for a purported credit facility.

Further investigations indicated that this case formed part of a wider pattern of system abuse. On 16 March 2021, an NSS officer manually uploaded 4,557 names of postgraduate students from KNUST, of which only nineteen (19) were regionally approved. Nevertheless, 2,802 individuals were paid a combined GH¢899,349.67 in allowances without adequate verification or evidence of actual service.

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Auditors attributed these irregularities to manual overrides of enrolment systems, weak internal controls, and the failure to enforce automated verification checks designed to prevent dual enrolment. They also identified misuse of the MarketPlace platform to divert funds without proof of goods or services delivered.

Describing the development as a grave breach of the NSS’s statutory and procedural framework, the Auditor-General warned that such lapses expose the scheme to “unauthorised payments, ghost enrolments, and significant financial losses.”

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Recommendations by the Auditor-General

The Auditor-General has recommended a series of corrective actions, including:

• Full recovery of unearned allowances from Mrs Oware-Mensah and other implicated individuals.

• Retrieval of outstanding payments from two officials, Osei Assibey Antwi and Eric Nyarko, who authorised and processed the irregular transactions.

• Surcharging Oware-Mensah, Antwi, and Nyarko with GH¢899,349.67 at the prevailing Bank of Ghana interest rate.

• Termination of the NSS “MarketPlace” hire-purchase scheme, which auditors said falls outside the Scheme’s core mandate.

• Implementation of automated controls to prevent dual enrolment by public officers.

• Disciplinary sanctions against officials who bypassed verification and approval procedures.

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The report also urged the National Service Authority to strengthen oversight and enhance digital verification systems to ensure that only duly accepted and regionally approved personnel are deployed and paid.