Ejura (Ashanti Region) -- The Sekyere West District Assembly has placed an embargo on workers' salaries for July due to anomalies detected on payment vouchers at the Kwamanman Rural Bank.

A total of 492.5 million cedis representing payment to suspected 59 "ghost" workers would have been lost to the state.

A letter from the assembly signed by the District Co-ordinating Director Mr. David Zakari, directed all banks in the district to suspend payment of workers salaries until a team of inspectors had finished a verification exercise on the anomalies.

Reports from the office of the district assembly indicated that the District Finance Officer Mr. Charles Owusu Agyeman Prempeh detected the anomaly when he was struck by the amounts against specific names, which ranged between six million cedis and nine million cedis.

He said the ghost names were found on the Kwamanman Rural Bank report 11 and credit vouchers alone.

Report 11 contains names of people and the cheque to be used by the banks in payment of workers salary. Workers who unknowingly reported at their various banks to collect their salaries were not paid.

Meanwhile, the office of the Controller and Accountant General in Accra has been informed of the anomaly.