Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, has announced a decisive shift in the state’s response to financial misconduct in public office, declaring that all monies disallowed and surcharged in the National Service Scheme scandal will be fully recovered from those responsible.
Speaking to the media, Dr Ayine said the process has already been triggered following close coordination with the Auditor-General, marking what he described as a new era of accountability in the management of public funds.
Dr Ayine disclosed that the Auditor-General has formally disallowed the sums involved in the National Service Authority scandal and surcharged the public officers who supervised and authorised the expenditure that led to the loss of state resources.
According to him, notices of disallowance and surcharge have been duly issued and served on the affected officials. Under Ghana’s audit laws, he explained, once the notices are served, the officers have 14 days to show cause why the sums should not be surcharged on them.
“After 14 days, if they fail to show cause, the money becomes a debt due and owing to the Republic. Once a judgment is obtained, it will be executed using the civil procedure mechanisms, including the attachment of properties they own, whether or not these properties were a part of the proceeds of crime”.
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine
Dr Ayine said he intends to formally write to the Auditor-General to confirm the notices of disallowance and surcharge, after which enforcement action will follow without hesitation.
He stressed that the recovery process would not depend on the outcome of criminal trials, making it clear that civil recovery operates under a different legal threshold.
“I do not need to prove your guilt in a criminal matter in order to succeed in the surcharge and disallowance, because that is a civil matter. It is proved on the basis of the balance of probabilities.”
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine
Caution Against Financial Impropiety
He warned that any public officer who recklessly or negligently causes financial loss to the state will be made to refund the money, regardless of whether they personally benefited from the transaction.
The Attorney-General said this approach sends a clear message to all public officers, particularly spending officers who authorise payments on behalf of the Republic.
He cautioned that causing financial loss to the state, whether intentionally or recklessly, will now attract both criminal prosecution and civil recovery through disallowance and surcharge.
The renewed enforcement follows the release of a damning forensic audit into the operations of the National Service Authority, formerly known as the National Service Scheme.
In October 2025, the Auditor-General revealed that financial irregularities within the Authority between 2017 and 2024 had ballooned to GH¢2.2 billion, a figure nearly four times higher than earlier estimates released in mid-2025.
The audit described the situation as a “criminal enterprise,” uncovering widespread manipulation of payroll systems, manual overrides of automated controls, and the deliberate insertion of ghost names.
According to the findings, more than 81,800 non-existent personnel were added to the payroll, draining about GH¢50 million every month. A headcount exercise in 2024 confirmed that out of 180,030 names on the payroll, only 98,145 represented legitimate national service personnel.
The audit further revealed that systemic controls were routinely bypassed. About 78 percent of postings between 2018 and 2024 were processed through manual overrides, while 65 percent of enrolments were uploaded outside approved digital channels.
Investigators also uncovered significant project mismanagement, including the diversion of GH¢34 million meant for recruitment into the purchase of vehicles and irrigation systems, with only a fraction of planned farming activities actually undertaken.
In addition, over GH¢72 million was reportedly paid to vendors without evidence of service delivery. These payments, the audit found, were made to companies such as Marine Ventures and Alfaira Ventures, raising further concerns about procurement abuse and weak oversight.
Criminal prosecutions are already underway against between 12 and 22 suspects, including former senior officials of the Authority. Among those implicated is former Director-General Osei Assibey Antwi, who is accused of overseeing the insertion of tens of thousands of ghost names and misappropriating millions of cedis, including funds allegedly traced to a personal e-zwich account.
Former Deputy Director-General Gifty Oware-Mensah is also facing charges related to stealing and wilfully causing financial loss, while another former Director-General, Mustapha Ussif, has been cited for authorising irregular enrolments and receiving unlawful salary payments.
Aggressive Surcharge Mechanism
While these criminal cases proceed, Dr Ayine emphasised that the surcharge mechanism will be aggressively pursued in parallel to ensure that public funds are recovered. He said the state can no longer afford a system where officials escape financial responsibility simply because criminal trials take time or fail to secure convictions.
“So in addition to the criminal charges which will be filed, we will ask the Auditor-General to disallow and surcharge the sums of money lost to the state on the public officers. That is the mechanism we will use to recover all the money that has been lost.”
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine
The Attorney-General concluded by warning that the NSS case should serve as a cautionary example across the public service. He said the government is determined to enforce discipline in public finance management and to ensure that those entrusted with state resources are held personally accountable for losses caused under their watch.
READ ALSO: BoG Governor Johnson Asiama Sets 10% NPL Target for Banks by End-2026 as Confidence Returns
