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Tongues are wagging at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) following the discovery of a �ghost name� on their payroll. The staff of the power company were surprised to find the name of a certain Eric Padi on their payroll drawing huge salary as driver of ECG when his whereabouts was nowhere to be found. Upon investigations, it turns out that he is the personal driver of Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation. Dr Oteng-Adjei, until January, was the Minister of Energy, a position he held for four years before the Mahama administration sent him to his current portfolio. Delay Story Attempts to get Dr Oteng-Adjei�s comments on the story proved unsuccessful since he said he was outside the country receiving medical treatment and could not speak readily to the issue. Instead, he wanted the story to be placed on hold till he returned to the country at the end of the month by which time he would be in the position to respond to our enquiries. He did not deny knowledge of Padi who takes GH�1,092.46 from the ECG without sweat. Documents stumbled upon by DAILY GUIDE indicated that just after his exit from the Energy Ministry, Dr Oteng-Adjei, issued instructions for his personal driver, Eric Padi to be put on the payroll of the ECG. This was when he wrote to management of the company asking them to place Mr Padi on secondment at the establishment when the driver was said to have earlier abandoned him for a bank job. Management of ECG could not but obliged to the Minister�s request by giving Dr Oteng-Adjei�s boy a six-month contract as a driver at the time when minister had no oversight responsibility over ECG. Padi was, therefore, supposed to begin work at the ECG as a contract-driver from March 18, 2013. But DAILY GUIDE checks at the ECG have established that Padi has never reported for duty at the ECG headquarters where he is supposed to be working since being placed on the payroll of the company. Checks among the drivers also drew blank answers as all of them said they didn�t know him except that they had been sighting some strange payslip of Padi at the transport department. Fat Salary Curiously, however, he walks to the High Street branch of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) at the end of each and every month smiling back home with a handsome GH�1,092.46 as salary from his account number 1011050007805. Interestingly, Padi is paid a basic salary of GH�1, 207.41 with a rent subsidy of GH�40.00 on top of a GH�65.00 transport allowance and GH�36.00 utility subsidy, totalling GH�1,348.41. No social security is paid on the salary indicating that Padi is taking another salary possibly at the Ministry of Environment where he drives the Minister. The only deductions that are made on the salary are what is described on his payroll as �defined benefit basic N.S.S.S� of GH�12.07, �occupational pension scheme� of GH�54.33 and income tax of GH�189.55, making it GH�255.95. Dr Oteng-Adjei and his boy would have succeeded in cheating the nation of some GH�8,090.46 by the time Padi�s �contract� is supposed to end on September 18, 2013. The ECG has confirmed that Padi is not their staff and that he was placed on the payroll of ECG on the instruction of their former minister. Sources say a lot of government appointees are having their personal staff on government payroll drawing fat salaries for no work done. The Minister�s boy had earlier quit his job at a private bank as driver due to poor salary at the time when Dr Oteng-Adjei was at the Energy Ministry. However, the Minister, who wanted Padi to be his driver, convinced him to return with a promise of a better deal. The Minister subsequently instructed ECG to place Padi on their payroll at the time his new appointment as Environment Minister had not yet been approved under the new Mahama administration.