About ten staff of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust [SSNIT], have been dismissed in the last few months for possessing fake certificates.
The Director-General of SSNIT, Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang, who made the revelation on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday said the ten were fished out when their certificates were vetted.
[contextly_sidebar id=”NiY8fo4DpVauHkLCZWfxsKocVRfONtwu”]“We had people who were in the system who didn’t even have certificates. And you know there was a flagship one [Mr. Afaglo]. Since then, I instructed that the certificates of all employees should be vetted and that vetting is still going on, but we’ve had to terminate about ten or so staff for possessing fake certificates,” he said.
SSNIT had earlier sacked its MIS Manager, Caleb Afaglo, who is said to possess fake degrees.
SSNIT said its independent evidence gathered about Mr. Afaglo’s qualifications, indicated that they were fake, hence the decision to relieve him of his position.
Mr. Afaglo was sacked in 2017 at a time that the social security company was under fire for blowing some $72 million on a project meant to network all of its branches and ensure efficiency in its operation.
The project included the installation of a software to ensure that its headquarters receives data directly from all of its offices.
Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang said SSNIT is currently overstaffed, and also has some staff in positions they shouldn’t be occupying.
“…We haven’t had to hire much staff because we are overstaffed as a result of certain recruitment that went on before I got there. About 600 people were put on the payroll permanently from August 2016 to January 2017. And it was in the policy that before you get engaged, your certificates should be vetted, but somehow a lot of these [people] pass through.”
He said the Trust is currently undertaking an exercise to check all those issues.
“We have staff there who are not fit for the positions in which they occupy. And we are doing a study in the review of the competencies of such staff. And those that we find are incompetent and cannot be trained, we’ve got to figure out a way to part ways with them, but those that we feel that they can be deployed in certain areas or be given minimal training, to be able to perform well in other areas, we would have to do that,” he added.
Former SSNIT boss, others indicted
Four persons, including the former Director-General of the SSNIT, Ernest Thompson, have been charged for allegedly causing financial loss to the state following the Economic and Organised Crimes Office’s (EOCO) investigations into the $72 million SSNIT software scandal.
SSNIT under Mr. Thompson allegedly embarked on a digitization drive the company which made the company lose about $72 million, an amount which is now believed to be close to $200 million after auditing by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana
Mr. Thompson and four other persons had initially been arrested by EOCO after the audit.
The five are; the former Head of IT Department, Caleb Kwaku Afaglo; former OBS project manager; John Hagan Mensah, one Thomas Samson Owusu and Juliet Hasana Kramah, the CEO of IT company, Perfect Business Systems.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin
