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Ghana’s government payroll has been inflated by 67,311 “ghost workers,” resulting in the recovery of around GH₵150.4 million ($14,398,861) in unearned wages, according to Minister of Finance Cassiel Ato Forson.
During a parliamentary session on Thursday for the 2025 mid-year budget review, Dr. Forson disclosed that an audit by the Ghana Audit Service had identified two types of fraudulent entries.
“14,000 unidentified workers and 53,311 separated staff made up of people who are either on retirement, resigned, terminated, leave without pay or deceased, and yet remained on government payroll.”
The Ghana News Agency reports that the minister warned those responsible for these deceptive entries. Forson informed Parliament that the audit is expected to be finalised by the end of August 2025, with updates on the findings and outcomes provided to the public.
To address the issue of ghost worker entries, the government plans to implement a range of measures, including “conducting regular nationwide payroll audits to clean up the government payroll and reassigning staff from overstaffed and inactive Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDA) to areas with urgent staffing requirements.”
These reforms were prompted by a February directive from President Mahama, calling for investigations into the National Service Authority’s operations under the previous administration after over 81,000 suspected ghost names were identified on its payroll.
The ghost names were found during a headcount aimed at clearing pending allowance payments at the agency, which oversees mandatory one-year employment placements for graduates, according to a statement from the presidency.
