By Prince Acquah
Cape Coast, Aug. 14, GNA – Transparency International Ghana has called for the full decentralisation of the education payroll management system to the district level to mitigate fraud and corruption associated with staff validation and enlistment.
It observed that the current national-level validation system was inefficient in identifying real and active staff, creating avenues for corruption and payroll irregularities that depleted the coffers of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
Mr Michael Kwame Boadi, Fundraising Manager, TI Ghana, made the call when he presented findings of a corruption risk assessment in the education sector at a stakeholder forum organised by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in Cape Coast.
The assessment was conducted by TI Ghana in six districts in 2023 under the Inclusive Service Delivery Africa project to gauge the risk areas in accessing quality education in the country.
The districts were Ada West and Ayawaso Central in the Greater Accra Region, Cape Coast and Upper Denkyira East in the Central Region, Kassena-Nankana and Kassena-Nankana West in the Upper East Region.
The assessment found that payroll irregularities were a major source of waste at GES.
According to the report, the current system provided a perfect turf for ghost names, bribery, false assumption letters, weak checks and balances, and teacher absenteeism which affected education outcomes and the overall development of the sector.
It stated that about 95 per cent of the GES budget was spent on salaries, making efficient expenditure critical to funding supervision, capacity building, and the recruitment of additional teachers.
Sharing the findings, Mr Boadi stressed that an inefficient payroll with ghost names and salary-earning absentee teachers were impediments to investing in recruitments, supervision, and capacity building, calling on the GES and the Accountant General’s Department to act with urgency.
“With the current system, it is difficult to validate who is offering the service. If the report comes and says that the teacher was in school, you have no way of authenticating that in Accra.
“So, if it is decentralised, then the structures are able to validate whether the teachers were at post or not,” he explained.
Mr Boadi also proposed the introduction of an automated clocking system to check absenteeism in schools and education offices.
He further urged the GES to adequately resource School Improvement Support Officers (SISO) to enable them undertake supervision effectively.
Mr Boadi, denouncing corruption, observed that women and children were among the worst affected by corrupt practices.
”For every one person who benefits from corruption, hundreds of people are suffer,” he said, entreating citizens to report corruption promptly.
Meanwhile, some participants shared their first-hand experiences with corruption in the education sector, with some narrating how they were forced to pay bribes for admission into Senior High Schools and secure hostel accommodations in universities.
They pledged their commitment to support the fight against corruption but called for better systems and strict actions to reduce the risks.
Mr Joseph Abban, the Cape Coast Metro Director of NCCE, maintained that civic education was shared responsibility and the fight against corruption required the involvement of every citizen.
“If you do not contribute to the fight, it will continue to fester and, in the end, we will all suffer. So do not protect corrupt people. It is your civic responsibility to name and shame them,” he said.
“Additionally, a lot of the work also depends on our law enforcement agencies whose duty it is to arrest and prosecute such characters without fear or favour,” he added.
GNA
Edited by Alice Tettey/Linda Asante Agyei
Reporter: Prince Acquah
E-mail: [email protected]