Six individuals have been convicted by the High Court in Tamale, in the northern region, for their roles in a payroll corruption scheme involving ghost names and fraudulent salary payments within the Ghana Education Service.
The convicted individuals are: Tahidu Yakubu, a former teacher at Balogu M/A Junior High School (Balogu JHS) in Yendi, Abdulai Abubakar Sadic, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) Coordinator for the Yendi Municipality, Sammy Suuk, the Schools Improvement Support Officer (SISO) for the Yendi North Circuit, Mohammed Yusif Jay, former Headmaster of Balogu JHS, Stafford Korletey Azudey-Barres, an Assistant Chief Account Technician at the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department in Accra, Osman Issahaku, the current Headmaster of Balogu JHS, is responsible for validating teacher salaries at the school.
Their actions led to the wrongful payment of over GHc 86,000, all of which has now been recovered—bringing the total amount retrieved to GHc 106,319.64.
The convictions followed guilty pleas entered under the Office of the Special Prosecutors(OSP’s) plea bargaining framework, leading to full restitution and reparation to the State.
The Office is also pursuing several other suspects as part of a broader, ongoing investigation.
The OSP currently has six other criminal trials ongoing in Accra, Tamale, and Kumasi as it intensifies efforts to charge more individuals under investigation and safeguard public funds.
