The Commercial Crime Unit (CCU) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has apprehended 56-year-old Gilbert Kwasi Mensah Addison, an accounts officer at the Controller and Accountant- General’s Department, together with three others, for allegedly embezzling an amount of Ghc102, 207.00 belonging to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NmC).

The others include Daniel Ninson 28, a rubber stamp maker at Takoradi; Albert Nantomah, 58, head of finance, Nursing and Midwifery Council, Accra and John Donnals, 39, assistant internal auditor NMC.

The four are currently assisting the police to investigate the matter.

Briefing the DAILY GUIDE, Superintendent Felix Mawusi, Director in charge of the CCU, said the theft was detected on November 13, 2014 by the Registrar of the Council and consequently reported the matter to the police.

According to him, a theft of Ghc102,207.00 was detected at the Western Regional office of the council at Takoradi.

This, the paper was told, occurred from October 1, 2013 to October 31, 2014.

Gilbert Addison – who was seconded to the Western Regional branch of the Council - upon interrogations, allegedly said he used the money to pay his personal debts and intended to pay back.

Police further disclosed that Addison used his position to embezzle the money, but failed to pay back into the council’s account at the Takoradi branch of the Bank of Ghana.

“Investigations are still ongoing,” Supt. Mawusi added.

In recent times, government payroll is said to be fraught with ghost names, thereby raising the public sector wage bill.

A 2012 final audit report by an international audit agency on government’s payroll system revealed that there were 3,288 potential duplicate employees that had been identified as having identical first and last names, national identifier, date of birth and joining date.

The agency recommended that as a matter of urgency, duplicate checks on employee first name, last name, date of birth and other key parameters, if applicable, should be introduced into the payroll system, adding that data entered during hire should be validated and rejected/notified in case of potential duplicates.

However, deputy finance minister, Mona Quartey, says public sector wage bill has dropped from 70% of government revenue to 57% after a rigorous process to remove ‘ghost names’ or non-existing bank accounts from government payroll.