Two more human resource managers interdicted over fraud

TWO more human resource managers with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) have been interdicted on allegations of fraud.
The two were heads of the human resource directorates in the Greater Accra and the Central regional offices of the GHS.
Late last year, the Ashanti Regional Human Resource Manager, Mr Gershon Agbo, who was believed to be the architect of the alleged deals, was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Kumasi where he was made to refund GH¢50,000 after which he was interdicted.
The GHS officials alleged that the date of employment of some junior employees of the service were back-dated to enable them to receive huge salary arrears out of which those employees paid large portions of the booty to the human resource managers.
According to the officials, since the number of the employees was large, the alleged criminals were able to siphon large sums of state funds into their private accounts.
The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Elias Sory, told the Daily Graphic in Accra that the alleged crime was detected when an audit team visited some of the health service directorates after there were repeated cases of anomalies on the staff payroll.
He said so many things happened with the staff payroll to the extent that there was a time that he, the Director-General, and the head of the service had his name deleted from the payroll.
Dr Sory said an auditing exercise began in 2009 and had already covered the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central and Volta regions. He expressed the hope that by the time the whole nation was covered, the system would be cleared of all anomalies.
Dr Sory said the service had saved about GH¢500,000 on its budgetary allocation since the auditing began, adding that “it is either because names of non-existent staff are getting off the payroll or some people who used to benefit from the deals are changing their ways or leaving the service”.
For his part, the Human Resource Director of the GHS, Dr McDaniel Dedzo, said a request had been made to the Ministry of Health (MoH) for additional financial support to enable the audit team to conduct thorough auditing throughout the country.
He said the auditing had to cover a three-year period beginning from 2007 so that wrongdoers would be found and punished and anybody mistakenly accused would have the opportunity to clear his or her name.
Dr Dedzo said the law indicated that individuals on interdiction were paid a certain portion of their salary until such time that they were either found guilty or innocent.
He said the guilty ones would face the law while the innocent would be paid back all monies deducted as they stayed home.
The Human Resource Director said preliminary investigations had revealed that the deal seemed to originate from one source which had links in the other regions where he got assistance.
He said the audit team was made up of the staff of the internal audit unit, the finance department and the human resource department of the GHS, adding that since they worked within the service, it was easier for them to pinpoint the loopholes in the system.
In September last year the Daily Graphic reported that the GHS had uncovered some cases of fraud involving some human resource personnel who had allegedly siphoned and embezzled state funds.
The alleged crime, which was detected in the Ashanti, Central and Greater Accra regions, was believed to be widespread.
The alleged principal architect of the crime, Mr Gershon Agbo, who is the Human Resource Director of the Ashanti Regional Health Directorate, has already been ordered by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Kumasi to refund GH¢50,000 and has also been interdicted.
The story was confirmed to the Daily Graphic by Dr Sory, and the Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, Alhaji Dr Mohammed Bin Ibrahim, in separate interviews.