Ghana has lost GHS400 million of taxpayers’ money to some 41,000 non-existent people on the payrolls of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) as well as the National Service Scheme (NSS), Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed.
“14,000 ghost names were recently found at the National Service because there was no unique identity”, Dr Bawumia said, adding: “Just a couple of days ago, SSNIT found 27,000 ghost names, and they were being paid GH¢327 million”.
“Just these two institutions have cost us over GH¢400 million”, he observed at the 2021 Civil Service Awards Night in Accra.
Dr Bawumia said the Ghana card, thus, presents the best opportunity to get rid of ghost names on payrolls.
He, therefore, insisted that he would choose the card over 1000 interchanges.
“It seems my Ghana card statement was misinterpreted. I want people to think about it critically. For the first time in our history, we have a unique identity system which is biometric, and, so, we can identify individuals.”
“With this, the case of ghost names on our public sector system will become a thing of the past.”