Tamale Teaching Hospital refutes claims of paying ‘ghost employees’

The Tamale Teaching Hospital has dismissed claims of disbursing salaries to so-called ghost employees.

Following an examination of the payroll system in the Northern Region, which included the Tamale Teaching Hospital and educational institutions under the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) expressed concerns about certain irregularities, including unauthorised and inactive validation leading to payments to ghost names.

In response to the report during a Citi News interview on Wednesday, Aliu Zuberu, the Public Relations Officer of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, stated that the hospital was unaware of these findings but assured that measures would be put in place to ensure transparency.

“We disagree with whatever information that is put out there. Although we haven’t had any formal communication from the OSP, we only saw a document being circulated online.

“So even as we wait for any formal communication, we are taking it so seriously with the issues that are raised. With regards to HR, the data on staff and all that, some of the issues they raised, we don’t know the details yet. But, we are hearing ghost names and then validation with inactive validation information and all that.”

“So we need to run through our system to see as they alleged to be sure that, one, they are not ghost names as it has been alleged, and, to be sure that we are not also validating any employee who is not actually on our payroll or even at post.

“So internally, we are doing our own assessment of what the OSP is putting out, and then we’ll definitely respond to them appropriately,” he stated.