Accra: The National Service Authority (NSA) has flagged 8,105 individuals in its payroll database pending investigations by security agencies. The Authority said 1,840 of the affected individuals had been suspended.
According to Ghana News Agency, Madam Ruth Dela Sedoh, Director-General of the NSA, disclosed this at a press briefing at the Authority's headquarters in Accra. She said that had the irregularities gone undetected, non-qualified individuals would have been enrolled as national service personnel and received undue monthly allowances.
Madam Sedoh highlighted the potential financial impact by stating, "The state would have incurred significant financial losses through payment of monthly allowances to these individuals. The credibility and integrity of the National Service Authority would have been severely compromised."
The Director-General explained that the Authority had been undermined for years by individuals who created non-existent service personnel or collaborated with insiders to process payments for people who never reported for duty. The irregularities were linked to discrepancies between the number of graduates officially produced by certain tertiary institutions and the figures submitted to the NSA for enrolment.
The institutions involved include the University for Development Studies, Ghana Communication Technology University, and the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development. "We compared the number of students who officially graduated from these schools with the lists submitted to us and discovered serious inconsistencies. What we uncovered points to a large cartel operating within the system," Madam Sedoh noted.
The investigations have led to the arrest of 10 staff members from the affected institutions, who are assisting security agencies with further inquiries. Meanwhile, the NSA has extended the deadline for personnel registration and validation by one week, from Monday, December 15 to Monday, December 22, 2025, to address validation challenges and requests for reposting from rejected institutions.