President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has suspended the use of the Central Management system by the National Service Authority for postings.
A statement from the Ministry of Youth Development said the suspension is to allow for a technical and forensic audit of the system.
While the system has been suspended, efforts are being put in place to ensure that prospective Service personnel are not affected.
Adding that an alternative is currently being reviewed to help in the posting of prospective service personnel in the country.
Concerns were raised by Managing Director for the Fourth Estate, a media Arm of the Media Foundation for West Africa which investigated that NSA and found out the fraud ongoing at the Authority.
In several posts shared via social media, Sulemana Braimah could not fathom why the current administration will continue the use of a system that allowed for manipulation and leakages.
His post on the issue read:
THE NSS SCANDAL: HERE IS WHY FELIX GYAMFI’S DEFENCE OF THE GHOST NAMES DIGITAL PLATFORM/METRIC APP IS SHOCKING
I have been reading with delight, the comments of those who argue that the problem with the NSS ghost names scandal was/is not about the digital platform or the so-called metric app, but just the NSS staff who were using it.
Surprisingly, those who make this argument include the current Director General of the National Service Authority (NSA), Felix Gyamfi.
Before I go on to the substantive points, it is important to point out that the current Director General was a staff (in fact a District Director), of the NSS/NSA until his appointment this year. So he was within the NSS/NSA when the scheme was populated with thousands of ghost names costing the nation hundreds of millions of cedis. He wasn’t appointed from outside.
Now to the substantive response to those who say the ghost names digital platform is not the problem but the NSS people who were using it. HERE ARE SOME FACTS FOR YOU
1. The NSS/NSA contracted Inpath Technologies Ghana Ltd to develop what it called the Central Service Management Portal (CSMP) to be used for the following: Submission of list of graduates by schools; online national service enrollment; automated PIN code and NSS number generation; automated identity verification of service personnel; online retrieval of posting information and letters of service personnel; Monitoring and verification of personnel presence at work to justify payment; and more.
2. The Service Provider was not to, and did not, build the CSMP platform and hand it over to the NSS/NSA.
3. The Service Provider was the builder, operator, maintainer and custodian of the digital platform
4. Thus Service Provider was at all times responsible for how the platform functioned and operated. No one could or was allowed to make any functional changes to the platform except the Service Provider
5. The Service Provider was at all times, the one controlling the full back-end access to the platform. No one could get access to the back-end of the platform without authorisation by the Service Provider.
6. The Service provider was the only entity/people who could block any person(s) from the DG to the cleaner at NSS/NSA, from having access to the platform.
7. As part of the Contract, the Service Provider was required to ensure that the platform has robust web security to prevent it from what the contract refers to as “malicious intrusions.” I suppose inclusion of thousands of ghost names will be a malicious intrusion.
8. The Contract stated that if at any point the Service Provider becomes aware of a breach of the security of the platform, it shall notify NSS of the breach indicating when the breach occurred, the nature of the breach and what steps it has taken to remedy the security breach and a future breach.
9. When the Service Provider became aware of the ghost names breach year after year, what steps did they take to remedy the situation? If the situation was remedied, why did the ghost names continue for several years on the same platform?
10. If not the Service Provider who had exclusive full access rights, who granted the necessary back-end access rights that made it possible for NSS staff to enroll fake personnel without Ghana Card? Who granted the back-end access that allowed people to use just ordinary papers and company ID cards in place of Ghana Card to enroll as service personnel. Who granted the access to allow for the 80 and 90-year-olds to be enrolled for national service? Who granted access for the fake index numbers to be inputted on the platform?
11. Was and is the platform so porous such that any thing at all was/is allowed to be put in by those who had/have access to input any data at all? If so, is that the platform the current DG Felix Gyamfi is defending as robust?
12. Even if the platform was/is so porous that it allows for any fraudulent activities to be carried out, what was the service provider’s obligation as the operator of the platform in terms of ensuring integrity of the platform? What did the service provider do to prevent the fraud from continuing?
