MPs say Finance Ministry, Auditor General staff can identify “ghosts”
Accra (Greater Accra) 18 January 2002 - Prince Oduro-Mensah, NPP- Member of Parliament for Techiman South, on Thursday called on Ghanaians to rally solidly behind the Black Stars to rekindle the confidence in soccer that many cherish and to which much resources had been committed.
He said it was appropriate that at this stage when the Africa Cup of Nations was about kicking off, all Ghanaians, not only the soccer loving ones, show appreciation and encourage the Black Stars to revive the country's football fortunes.
Prince Oduro-Mensah said this when he delivered a statement in Parliament on the Black Stars participation in the 23rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations dubbed "Mali 2002".
He called on Parliament and the entire nation to offer prayers and emotional support to the players and their officials and to ginger them to excel and bring honour to the nation.
Prince Oduro- Mensah said Ghana had the status of being one of the only two four time African Champions at that level of football, however, in the last two decades "our mediocre performance has made this achievement a trite historical record.
"We have either out-rightly failed to qualify for the competition or finished poorly behind less endowed teams because our camp had been overwhelmed with confusion even when we are the host nation as happened in CAN 2000."
Prince Oduro-Mensah said: "Our Archiles heel has been the qualification to the world Cup, where pundits say, 'the men are separated from the boys.'"
He said it was the hope of many Ghanaians that, even though, the Black Stars were starting the Mali 2002 competition as underdogs, they would rise to the occasion and use the opportunity to reposition the nation among Africa soccer giants.
Prince Oduro-Mensah observed that the Black Stars preparation towards the Nations Cup has not been very impressive and encouraging.
He said the problems of late camping, administrative ineptitude, the dual controversy over player invitation and which players qualified to don the national jersey and who should wear the captain's band, had significantly undermined the confidence of the sporting public in the team.
Prince Oduro-Mensah said, "however there is calm and determination and enthusiasm among the players in the camp of the Stars at the moment, which is appreciably high and almost infectious, however, big our problems are, we have not experienced either player revolt or financial crisis'".
He said the nation must show appreciation to individuals and corporate bodies and organisation for heeding the call by the Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama for their sponsorship and donations in cash and kind to boost the morale of the players.
Mr Ransford Agyepong, NPP-Suhum said there was the need for the team to be retained even if it failed to make it to the finals and suggested that the officials should ensure that they included players from Kumasi Asante Kotoko football club to have vibrant team.
GRi../
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Accra (Greater Accra) 18 January 2002 - In the wake of search for answers to clean public pay rolls of "ghosts", members of Parliament have identified staff of the Accountant General's Department, Auditor-General Department and Ministry of Finance as the front liners to solve the mystery.
They said on Thursday that no ordinary person than those directly involved in the payment and administration of salaries could single-handedly swindle the nation persistently of such huge sums of money.
Mr P. C. Appiah-Ofori, NPP-Asikuma/Odoben/Brakwa, had issued a statement offering suggestions for the elimination of ghosts on government pay rolls. "My observation is that it is rather the MOF, which through its strict adherence to appropriation budgeting, that has unconsciously, for many years, facilitated the perpetuation of payroll frauds and other financial malfeasance."
In preparing the annual budgets for the government, what the Ministry did was that all budgeted expenditures, provisional or actual, for a year ending were increased by a certain percentage and figures arrived at become the budgeted expenditure for the succeeding year.
"By this method, budgeted personnel emoluments, for example, far exceed the actual emoluments to actual eligible payees, some privileged staff in the public service then insert ghost names on the payrolls to absorb the excess budgeted votes."
Mr Appiah-Ofori said: " This shows that if the amount voted for personnel emoluments were to cover the actual number of people in the employment of the state, there would be no place for the ghost names on the payrolls as there would be no money available to pay the ghost."
He asked the MOF to direct all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to support their personnel emolument budgets with the list of their personnel.
"The heads of the MDAs should certify and sign their lists so that in the event that any of the names turns out to be ghost, the head shall be made to suffer for the fraud."
The member called on all Ghanaians to report any known ghost on the public payroll to save money that went into the pockets of unscrupulous people every month.
GRi../
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