Youth Employment Agency delete 16, 839 names from payroll

The Youth Employment Agency says it has deleted the names of 16,839 from the payroll after an audit found their employment to have been tainted with fraud.

Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Justice Frimpong, who disclosed this at a press conference in Accra, on Wednesday, said the action has saved the nation more than 20 million cedis.

The deletion follows an audit of the Agency's human resource over the past four months.

This became necessary after the YEA said it had detected some discrepancies on the beneficiary payroll.

It said it found out during the payments that some beneficiaries were using the same E-zwich numbers. It also said it noticed huge arrears as a result of the non-payment of some beneficiaries since May 2016.

In a statement last April, the Agency said it had suspended the payment of allowance to beneficiaries to allow for a full audit.

Mr. Frimpong said the audit has found, beneficiaries of the YEA had vacated post but were still earning allowance.

Some of the affected persons also had no appointment letters while some of the letters did not have signature of CEO.

Some letters had the signatures of the CEO faked, Justice Frimpong said. The employees on some schemes were also found to have been above the YEA's age requirements

He revealed his commitment to implementing the recommendations of the audit report which includes a call to strengthen the internal control mechanisms.

There will be pre-monthly validations before allowances are paid. All payments are to pass through the internal audit for pre-auditing before payment is effected.

#Latestinghana #Headlinesnews #News #Politics