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The 2011, 2012 and 2013 Auditor General's reports have revealed that some former employees of the Ministry of Roads and Highways were paid salaries they did not work for.

The Controller and Accountant-General paid the money, ranging from GH¢8,000 to GHc¢22,000, into the accounts of employees who had gone on retirement, left the job or died. 

According to the reports, the ministry, however, fully recovered unearned salaries from some former employees of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) and the Department of Feeder Roads, both departments under the ministry, in 2014.

PAC worried

When the Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, and his team appeared before the PAC yesterday, members of the committee condemned the situation which allowed the former employees to continue to receive their salaries after leaving office.

The PAC sought explanation as to what caused the delay in retrieving the wrongfully paid money to the former employees.

Ministry's response

Responding, Alhaji Fuseini said the ministry wrote letters to the Controller and Accountant General, informing the latter about staff going on retirement and those who had vacated their posts or died for their names to be expunged from the payroll.

However, he said, it took a long time for the Controller and Accountant General to carry through the process for expunging the names of the former employees and that resulted in the continued payment of the salaries of those employees.

Alhaji Fuseini said the people who took the unearned salaries had admitted  but one of them had refunded the money.

He said the outstanding amount was GH¢8,413 paid into the account of a deceased employee in Sefwi Wiawso.

He said the next of kin of the deceased withdrew the money from the account, adding that the family of the deceased had given an undertaking that it would pay the money back from the deceased’s Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contribution.