The National Service Authority (NSA) has reduced its annual payroll from more than GH¢1.5 billion to about GH¢700 million following the removal of thousands of fictitious names from its system, the Deputy Director-General in charge of Operations has disclosed.
Lieutenant Colonel Moses Dok Nach Kpeungu revealed this in a radio interview on Joy FM on Monday, April 20, 2026, describing the development as a major step towards restoring integrity to the payroll system.
He emphasised that the reduction was achieved without cutting allowances or reducing the number of legitimately verified personnel.
Lt Col Kpeungu explained that with a monthly allowance of GH¢715, paying 99,508 personnel over a 12-month period results in an annual payroll of approximately GH¢700 million, consistent with current expenditure levels.
He contrasted this with previous years when the authority spent between GH¢1.5 billion and GH¢1.6 billion on what was believed to be a similar or even smaller workforce.
“At 96,000, we were paying about one point something billion,” he said. “At 99,000, you are paying some 600; last year we paid barely about 700 million Ghana cedis.”
When asked whether the disparity pointed to the existence of ghost names, Lt Col Kpeungu agreed.
“You have just hit the nail on the head,” he said. “If we deploy 99,000 personnel at GH¢715 and multiply that by 12, you get the total. But if the system reflects far more names than those actually deployed, then the difference is what we call ghost names.”
He illustrated the situation by noting that if about 190,000 names were submitted for payment while only roughly 99,000 personnel were active, the excess would represent fictitious entries.
Official figures from a government headcount exercise conducted in early 2025 identified 81,885 ghost names. The audit compared 180,030 names submitted for payment in 2024 with 98,145 personnel who were verified as active.
At GH¢715 per month, the fictitious entries translated into an estimated GH¢58.5 million in payments each month.
The revelations follow earlier government disclosures. In February 2025, John Dramani Mahama directed the National Investigations Bureau to probe the authority after the headcount findings.
Subsequently, in June 2025, the Attorney-General indicated that the state had lost more than GH¢548 million through ghost names over several years, dating back to 2018.
Lt Col Kpeungu said the current payroll figures now present a more accurate reflection of the number of personnel on the scheme, highlighting how the same allowance structure produces significantly lower expenditure when applied to verified data.
To prevent a recurrence, the NSA has introduced a rigorous monthly validation process prior to salary payments.
The system involves confirmation by supervisors, verification at the district level, internal audit checks, validation by regional directors, and final reconciliation by the authority’s accounts unit before payments are processed through the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.
He acknowledged that the process may delay payments but stressed its importance in safeguarding public funds.
“If we simply release the money and pay everyone on the list, some people will not report to their place of posting and will still be paid,” he said.
Lt Col Kpeungu added that the authority had made progress in clearing outstanding allowances.
“We are in April, but we owe just one month,” he said. “We are working to keep the system on track.”
