Six “ghost workers” have so far been arrested and over ?10 million retrieved from them since the Audit Service moved in to unravel the mystery surrounding the ?300 billion the state loses yearly through ghost names on the public payroll.

The six, who were arrested during an initial strike by the service, were said to have taken moneys from the government chest without working for it.

Their names however, are being withheld for security reasons. Mr Edward Dua Agyeman, the Auditor-General (A-G) told the times in an interview that his outfit had deployed a 500-strong unit to track down the ghosts and ensure that monies fraudulently withdrawn from the national coffers were refunded.

Asked how the units operated, he said it instituted a head count into all Ministries, Department s and Agencies (MDA), studied the list of all those on the Controller and Accountant-General Payroll and most importantly, the Report, 11, the document which authorised the banks to pay out money to workers.

The A-G noted that the causes of ghost names were varied, ranging from new appointments, terminations, retirements, deaths and dismissals. He explained that when a new appointee was posted to a new station and did not take up the appointment, it took time for his officers in charge to delete his name from the voucher. So, in that period, he could be described as a “ghost” since his salary would continue to be paid.

These, the A-G said, could also result from terminations, either through resignations retirements, vacation of post and dismissals. On retirement, Mr Agyeman said that even though the payment of salary was supposed to stop automatically, a study at one of the ministries revealed that out of the 30,000 personal records, there were 1,552 people who did not have dates of birth and 18 people who continued to receive salaries after 60.

The review, he said, noted that it took 54 months to delete the names of retired persons from the payroll and a classic example was found of an employee born in 1900 whose name was still on the payroll. The A-G said that they had opened a special bank account with which all monies retrieved in the exercise would be lodged.

Another area where he said they would throw their searchlight on, was that of ghost car-owners. According to him, there was a long list of workers who did not have cars but drew regular car maintenance and fuel allowances.

“Some of these people have either sold their cars or commercialised them,” he noted. People who vacate their employments without satisfying their bond requirements would also be scrutinised in the exercise, he said.

Mr Agyeman said after the ghost name saga had been solved, a special department would be set up to study payrolls on a monthly basis to prevent any future recurrence of the phenomenon.