Eleven more teachers who submitted fake certificates to facilitate their engagement as teachers are being investigated by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
This brings to 135 teachers believed to be operating with fake certificates in different parts of the country who are being investigated by the BNI.
The move is part of efforts by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to sanitise the educational system to ensure that only those with genuine certificates are maintained.
As part of the exercise, the various regional directors of education have been tasked to forward verification reports on all teachers in both basic and second-cycle institutions under their jurisdiction.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Rev. Jonathan Bettey, said the names of 11 out of the number from the Gomoa East District in the Central Region had been handed over to the BNI.
He said currently, the BNI was inviting the affected teachers for interrogation.
Rev. Bettey said most of them had abandoned the classroom when they realised that the GES was carrying out the verification exercise and was confident that with the assistance of the regional directors of education and the BNI, such individuals would be fished out.
Falsified documents
He said the 11 falsified documents were presented to the headquarters of the GES for promotion and upgrading of the holders and upon close examination, it was detected that all of them were falsified certificates, forged letters from the district director of education which bore forged signatures of both the director and district human resource officer.
Out of the 11, four applied with fake certificates for promotion to various ranks, while the remaining seven applied for upgrading.
Effort by GES
Rev. Bettey said the service was all out to “fish out all those cheating the system and dragging the image of the service in the mud”.
He said the GES was committed to eliminating all ‘ghost’ names from the payroll under the service and appealed to the public to provide information that would lead to the cleaning of the system.
Throwing more light on the issue, the Director, Human Resource Management Division of the GES, Mrs Gertrude Mensah, said the service was working hard to flush out such ‘undesirable characters’.
“Anytime our attention is drawn to such persons, we immediately block their salaries as a first step and hand them over to the security agencies and until they are cleared, their salaries remain blocked,” she said.
Concerted effort needed
Mrs Mensah said the issue at hand needed a concerted effort among the GES, the Controller and Accountant-General and the security agencies, “and not a problem for only the GES to handle”.
She was happy that the security agencies, especially the BNI, had taken over the investigation aspect and was convinced that with such collaboration, the practice would be dealt with.
Regional reports
Mrs Mensah commended all the regional and district directors for taking the director-general’s directive seriously and hinted that some of the regional directors had already submitted their verification reports.
She said the reports, so far, were worrying, as some of those teaching and drawing salaries did not have certificates, while others had certificates without numbers.
She said the service had been dealing with such individuals on the quiet, stressing, “A number of such teachers had been dealt with in the past without the knowledge of the public.”
She, however, added that the current move was to signal a warning that the service would not rest until such undesirable practices were stopped.
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