We�ve Identified 4,000 �Fake� Teachers � Terkper

About 4000 ghost names of people have been removed from the government payroll system. These names had been captured as teachers in the government schools nationwide.

The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper revealed this when he touted government’s achievement in drastically reducing ghost names on Ghana’s payroll system on the Citi Breakfast Show.

He attributed the success to a number of measures put in place by government including electronic verification of public sector workers. Mr. Terkper who made this known on the Citi Breakfast Show yesterday, Friday, said they have so far been able to identify about 4,000 fake teachers in the educational sector. 

“Today we are not talking about ghost names. I would hope that we would do a story on ghost names as to why we are not hearing that phenomenon, as to why we are able to identify 4,000 fake teachers at a time. This is because we’ve put concrete measures in place including electronic verification,” he added.

400 fake teachers picked up It will be recalled that the Ghana Education Service in 2015 began a verification process across the country to flush out all teachers using fake certificates. About 400 fake teachers were subsequently picked up by the Bureau of National Investigations for questioning.

‘Fake teachers’ will be punished The Minister of Employment, Haruna Iddrisu earlier this year hinted that government will penalize teachers found to be operating with fake documents.

“We have some revelation of irregularities and fraud bothering on certificates backdating of some of the details. Backdating in particular of date of appointment and year of appointment and all that, has a consequence in computing the compensation of a particular employee. Those determined to have forged certificates and committed other irregularities will face the full rigorous of the law apart from the fact that they will be denied their compensation and their claims,” he added in an interview with Citi News.