From GhanaWeb
The European Union is withholding a £135 million budget support to Ghana due to an alleged payroll corruption scandal it is investigating.
According to a top British newspaper, Sunday Times, published in London on Sunday, the EU anti-fraud agency is probing a mammoth corruption scandal running into several million pounds in Ghana, being aid package from the EU to support the country’s budget among others.
The money is said to have found its way into the pockets of ‘ghost workers’ in government.
Managers of the fund releasing unit of the EU have been charged for as the newspaper put it, covering up the scandal after the Ghanaian government experienced major challenges with its budget and the late knowledge about the extent of the scandal.
Details of the report suggest that “tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of fictitious state employees were kept on Ghana’s public payroll partly financed by the EU and Britain.”
With limitations on how to establish the veracity of the allegations, the British and EU authorities are depending on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to undertake the task through a scrutiny of the country’s budget among other channels.
A senior IMF official is quoted by the newspaper as asking rhetorically, “Is there a massive fraud involving foreign aid fund? We will not be able to know the extent of it until a thorough reform has taken place; but it is apparent that the huge increase in the public payroll is the main reason for the growing deficit.”
The increase in the public payroll was noted in the wake of the addition of ruling party activists on the public sector workers’ list through various state agencies such as the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), a countrywide phenomenon which came under the public radar.
The opposition outcry was though unable to have government rescind its decision of creating salary earning channels for some nonexistent staffers.
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