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Former Directors-General of the National Service Authority (NSA), Osei Assibey Antwi and Mustapha Ussif, have strongly refuted allegations made by the Fourth Estate in a recent investigative report.
The publication accused the former NSA officials of various irregularities concerning enrolment, verification, and payment processes within the Authority.
However, in a press release cited by Puretvonline on Tuesday, February 18, the former officers described the report as “laden with a misapprehension of the enrolment, verification, and payment processes of the NSA, as well as selective omission of information, calculated to achieve contrived conclusions of imputing wrongdoing to former officers.”
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One of the core allegations in the publication was a significant discrepancy between the figures submitted to Parliament for budgetary purposes and those available to the public.
The former officers clarified that the Fourth Estate based its claims solely on figures from the general postings conducted in September, omitting two additional cohorts: nursing trainees and teacher trainees.
They explained that the NSA collaborates with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Teachers Council to run separate enrolment cycles for nurses and teachers. These additional cycles, they noted, accounted for the supposed shortfalls in figures.
The Fourth Estate also alleged that the NSA payroll was padded with “ghost names” due to discrepancies between the budgeted personnel and the verified postings.
Responding to this, the former officers asserted that the payroll is only activated after rigorous verification processes, ensuring that only verified personnel receive payments through the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), a Bank of Ghana subsidiary.
They stressed that individuals who fail to meet verification criteria are automatically excluded from the payroll system.
Further allegations included the presence of overaged individuals, foreign images, and incorrect IDs within the NSA’s system. Assibey and Ussif acknowledged that, as with any large-scale enrolment system, initial data submissions often contain errors. However, these issues, they argued, are routinely corrected during regional verification exercises.
They emphasised that personnel with inconsistencies in their records are flagged for further review and either categorised as “banned” or “pending verification,” ensuring that they do not receive payments.
Expressing their disappointment, the former NSA heads accused the Fourth Estate of relying solely on raw entry data without verifying the actual number of personnel paid annually through GhIPSS.
They suggested that this oversight indicated a deliberate attempt to craft a sensational story rather than to establish the truth through diligent investigation.
Throughout their tenure, they maintained that they prioritised implementing robust enrolment and verification mechanisms aimed at reducing fraudulent activities.
The former NSA Directors-General welcomed President John Mahama’s directive for an investigation into the matter. They expressed confidence that an official probe would reveal the true state of affairs and expose the inaccuracies in the Fourth Estate’s report.
They further urged journalists to uphold the highest ethical standards, ensuring that their work is based on thorough investigations rather than misleading narratives that could tarnish reputations unjustly.
Read the full statement of the press statement here: PRESS-RELEASE-RESPONSE-TO-NSA-INVESTIGATION-BY-THE-FOURTH-ESTATE
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