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A former Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) , Kobina Obu Obecheem, has given a detailed response on the latest payroll fraud uncovered at the Agency, saying the rot did not entirely occur under his watch.

An internal audit carried out by YEA has exposed a huge payroll fraud which is believed to have cost the country GH $50 million.

The amount is believed to be a sum of unearned salaries paid to unposted beneficiaries, funds for official use which were paid into personal accounts, and procurement without adherence to due process.

The former CEO, who is insisting that the anomaly occurred after he left office, in his response, also called for a detailed report on the audit to promote fairness and transparency.

“The YEA Beneficiary management software after satisfying prescribed criteria, electronically signed all beneficiary appointment letters. My signature was embedded in the database and as and when the appointment letter was generated by the database, my signature was placed electronically on the appointment letter. According to the press statement/conference, these anomalies were detected in March and April of 2017. I handed over the management of the agency to the current CEO on Friday the 24th of February 2017, and so these anomalies occurred after my handing over. These are obviously fraudulent, and I would encourage the management to involve the appropriate authorities and apprehend those who forged our signatures,” Mr. Obecheem explained.

“I commend the management for undertaking such an exercise. However in the interest of fairness and transparency, a detailed signed report from those management conducting the exercise would be very helpful and enable us to comment on the basis of empirical data. I would urge the publication of this report by management,” he added.

Earlier this year, YEA suspended the payment of allowances to over 60,000 beneficiaries on suspicion of discrepancies in the report handed to it by the managers under the previous administration.

The full-scale audit revealed that, many people who did not deserve to receive money from the Agency were doing so fraudulently.

So far, the Agency under the new managers, has deleted some 16,839 names from the payroll, which it says has saved the country Ghc20 million.