The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, has revealed a sophisticated fraud scheme allegedly led by Gifty Oware-Mensah, involving the misuse of National Service Scheme (NSS) allowances to secure a loan.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra today, Friday, June 13, on the government’s anti-corruption initiative, Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL), focusing on the National Service Authority, Dr Ayine said investigations into the scandal have been completed and legal proceedings are set to begin.
He revealed, “Our investigations disclose that several ghost names were deliberately added to the lists submitted to vendors, falsely representing the number of service personnel”.
He explained that after vendors received inflated payments from these ghost names, certain NSS officials approached them to retrieve the excess funds:
“When these vendors eventually received the payment, their directors and staff would then contact the vendors whose account had received payment, meet them, and collect the additional money that had been added to the vendor’s payment.”
Dr Ayine further disclosed:
“For instance, we have conclusively established that after collecting these funds, some of the suspects, such as Gaise Nyarko and Oteng, handed them over to suspect Osei Asibey Antwi in cash, and on some occasions deposited the cash into his bank account.”
He outlined a broader fraudulent scheme allegedly masterminded by Gifty Oware-Mensah, a former Deputy Executive Director of the NSA.
[embedded content]According to the Attorney General, “Some directors such as Gifty Oware-Mensah created and executed a meticulously detailed plan using NSS allowances as security to obtain a loan of about 30,698,218.69 from ADB, at an interest rate of 23 percent.”
Dr Ayine said Mrs. Oware-Mensah fraudulently registered a company named Blocks of Life Consult using other people’s information without their knowledge or permission:
“She achieved this result by using other people’s information to register a company called Blocks of Life Consult without their knowledge or permission.”
He added that she introduced the company to ADB through Akwasi Ofori Mintah, and involved her husband, Mr Peter Mensah, a lawyer, as a representative of the company:
“She presented Blocks of Life Consult through the person of Akwasi Ofori Mintah to an official of ADB, and enlisted her husband, Mr Peter Mensah, a lawyer, to act as one of the directors or representatives of the said company.”
Oware-Mensah is said to have informed ADB that the company specialised in supplying home appliances to service personnel and proposed a repayment model through salary deductions:
“She told ADB that the company specialised in supplying home appliances to National Service personnel and proposed that ADB finance the company to enable it to supply these items on a hire-purchase basis, with the NSS being responsible for handling deduction and repayment.”
Despite the arrangement, the Attorney General stated:
“On the marketplace of the Authority, there was no indication that Blocks of Life was a registered vendor.”
Investigations revealed that within two service years, Oware-Mensah allegedly used 9,934 ghost names to misappropriate funds. Dr Ayine confirmed:
“Suspect Gifty Oware-Mensah used a total of 9,934 ghost names to misappropriate the aforementioned funds.”
He added that the loan amount was transferred by ADB into the company’s account, and then into four separate company accounts.
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