Former NSA Bosses Contest Fourth Estate Publication

Mustapha Ussif and Osei Assibey Antwi, two former Directors of the National Service Authorities have jointly contested an investigative piece published by the Fourth Estate on the enrolment, verification and payment processes of the body during their tenure.

Among other things, the publication alleged there is a variation between figures submitted to parliament for budgetary purposes; and there are overaged, foreigners and wrong IDs on the NSA system.

Figures
Contesting all these allegations, the two stated that the submissions of personnel lists to parliament for budgetary purposes are based on the total personnel posted by the Authority.

However, it clarified that in practice, not all persons posted end up on the payroll owing to varying reasons including failing verification and failure to show up for the service.

“The payroll is thus only activated following stringent verification processes and only personnel who pass the verification process are paid through the GhiPPS System, a Bank of Ghana subsidiary system. Even then, the payment is only made after monthly validations that confirm that personnel are at their respective postings.

“Any surplus sums after payments by GhiPPS are left in the Authority’s account for subsequent use. The publication by the Fourth Estate is therefore false in suggesting simply because monies allocated by parliament exceed verified postings, some “ghosts” are drawing pay.”

Ghosts
On allegations that the system is padded with overaged persons, foreigners and wrong IDs, they explained that it was due to errors by educational Institutions and Private persons who provide initial data for national service without any input from the Authority.

“Such entry data is often ridden with several errors including the kind described by the Fourth Estate since there is no other data to cross-reference it with and unscrupulous persons always attempt to override the Authority’s system every enrolment cycle.”

That notwithstanding, they said during the regional verification process, which all personnel are required to undergo in person, provide identification information including Identification cards, facial biometric and finger biometric data which is cross-referenced with the initial data submitted.

During this stage, personnel with inconsistent information are categorised as banned or made to pend while awaiting verification.

“Any personnel failing verification remains in the system under banned, on hold or pending category, but becomes ineligible to be paid hence does not draw from the payroll. The majority of rejections happen at this stage and in point of fact, the several images, allegations of foreign nationals and placeholder images provided by the Fourth Estate are within this category of fraudulent attempts to beat the NSA System.”

Malice
Welcoming a directive by President Mahama to investigate the payroll of the NSA, the two former heads affirmed that the reportage by the Fourth Estate was backed with a “malicious” intent and calculated to “smear” them.

It therefore urged the public to disregard it.

“The publication by the Fourth Estate must therefore be treated with the contempt it deserves as it is a manifest example of how the misapprehension of data and institutional processes may result in conclusions that misinform and mislead the general public.”

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini