She didn’t lift a gun. She didn’t want to. Her weapon used to be get right of entry to, a login, a password, and the consider of a country.
Gifty Oware Mensah as soon as sat on the middle of the National Service Authority as Deputy Executive Director, serving to younger graduates take their first steps into the arena of labor. Beside her used to be her boss, Osei Assibey Antwi, a person recognized extra for his political upward thrust than for his managerial self-discipline. Together, prosecutors say, they grew to become a public provider device right into a manufacturing facility of ghosts.

Between February 2022 and March 2024, the National Service “market,” a virtual platform intended to lend a hand provider team of workers get right of entry to items and hire-purchase loans, changed into the easiest crime scene. Investigators exposed 9,934 pretend names, identities that breathed handiest on paper however bled genuine cash. On the power of the ones ghosts, the Agricultural Development Bank launched about GH¢31 million. The goal used to be noble: to enhance provider team of workers. The outcome used to be cynical; the products by no means got here, however the cash did.

According to the Attorney General’s price sheet, filed and signed through Dr. Dominic Ayine, the offenses come with stealing, inflicting monetary loss, the use of public workplace for finance, and cash laundering. The report strains GH¢31,502,091.40 to Blocks of Life Consult, a corporation Gifty allegedly managed. The irony of that identify is chilling. Blocks of Life constructed at the bones of ghosts. Another GH¢22.9 million reportedly went to Amaecom Global, the place she used to be a director. The relaxation used to be moved thru different firms, with Ghana charged GH¢6.9 million in pastime, as despite the fact that defrauding the Republic got here with a provider price.

But that used to be just one wing of the operation.
At the highest of the establishment, Executive Director Osei Assibey Antwi presided over what prosecutors describe as a bigger, institutionalized payroll heist. He is accused of authorizing bills amounting to greater than GH¢500 million to nonexistent provider team of workers. Auditors discovered that 60,000 ghost names had been paid allowances. The investigation additionally printed that GH¢8,256,000 used to be at once deposited into an e-zwich account registered in his personal identify, at the same time as he used to be bizarrely indexed as a volunteer at the identical scheme he used to be paid to oversee.

In overall, the 2 instances, {the marketplace} rip-off and the ghost payroll, have value the Republic greater than GH¢653 million in genuine losses and unpaid hope. These weren’t mistakes. They had been engineered.

This isn’t just about two other people. It is set how energy and consider can merge into robbery. It is set how vulnerable controls, lazy audits, and political patronage create room for public officials to behave like non-public landlords of state finances. How did one guy and one lady market such a lot keep watch over over a countrywide scheme with out detection? Where had been the auditors, the monetary controllers, and the institutional sense of right and wrong?

We frequently name those scandals surprising. They’re no longer. They are signs of a country whose techniques now breathe corruption like oxygen. Our establishments have turn into graveyards of consider. Every few years, we dig up every other scandal and act stunned. Then the similar script follows: reviews disregarded, audits not on time, and prosecutions stretched till outrage dies. Silence has turn into state coverage.

Meanwhile, genuine provider team of workers wake earlier than morning time to catch a trotro, borrow to devour, and pray their allowances aren’t not on time once more. They are the real servants of the Republic, whilst ghosts who by no means lived accrued their sweat in bulk bills.

I frequently ponder whether Gifty Oware Mensah and Osei Assibey Antwi sleep smartly. Maybe they do. Maybe they imagine they had been sensible, no longer corrupt. Because in Ghana’s paperwork, the ghosts by no means die; they migrate. From NSA to GES, GHS, NSS, NHIS, SSNIT, and MMDAs. From payroll to procurement. We fail to remember. They rebrand. We forgive. They reapply.

This should no longer turn into every other headline that fades into mud. The Republic should recuperate what used to be misplaced and fasten what failed. Biometric verification should be obligatory for all public disbursements. Audit reviews should be made public. Bank verifications should come with real-time knowledge exams, no longer spreadsheets by myself.

If Ghana fails to behave, the following heist is already in movement. The names will exchange. The numbers will develop. And the ghosts will march once more, silent, virtual, and fatal.
Because the ghosts have learnt accounting, and the residing have learnt silence

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made through Readers and Contributors in this platform don’t essentially constitute the perspectives or coverage of Multimedia Group Limited.