The National Coordinator of the District Road Improvement Programme (DRIP), Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, has blamed weak leadership under the Akufo-Addo administration for what he described as lapses that allowed scandals at the National Food and Buffer Stock Company and the National Service Authority (NSA) to occur.
Mr. Vanderpuye said the controversies linked to the two agencies were the result of a lack of accountability and oversight during former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s tenure.
He argued that some of the issues could have been prevented if there had been proper checks on the activities of government appointees.
Mr. Vanderpuye described the recent revelations surrounding the Buffer Stock and NSA as “surprising and a puzzle” that highlight failures in leadership.
“I was surprised because it’s not easy to have access to government funds the way they did. It’s not easy to create such a loot and share, strategic planning within the governmental space. Unless there was laxity on the part of the leadership. Unless there was an official failure.
“It is not easy for anyone at that level, an agency, a department or a ministry to do what some of them did. I don’t know how they did it, it’s become almost like a puzzle and a miracle to me,” he stated.
Referring to the NSA case, he questioned how the alleged creation of ghost names could have gone unnoticed.
“In the NSA case, how were people able to contrive and say they were going to create several ghost names? To do that means they don’t have repulsions, fear. When it comes to the Buffer Stock case, I’m totally overwhelmed. When we didn’t have money to buy food to feed school children,” he said.School supplies
Mr. Vanderpuye maintained that the scandals were avoidable if there had been stronger leadership at the top.
“I think that maybe the leadership of the government at the time didn’t help matters. When there’s a laissez-faire, general laxity, everybody is crumbling, and the head does not care. What happens is that such embarrassment befalls all of us,” he stressed.
His comments follow the announcement by the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, that the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company, Abdul-Wahab Hanan, and his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni, will be charged with multiple offences, including stealing and money laundering.
Addressing journalists at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, October 22, Dr. Ayine revealed that the formal charges will be filed on Friday, October 24, 2025.
The scale of financial losses in the ongoing National Service Authority (NSA) scandal is far greater than initially reported, according to the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine.
Dr. Ayine revealed that a forensic audit conducted by the Auditor General has uncovered a total of GHS 2.2 billion in funds either stolen or illegally expended within the NSA.
This figure is a staggering jump from the GHS 548 million originally identified by investigators as of June 2025.
Meanwhile, former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware Mensah, who has been implicated in the scandal, has pleaded not guilty to charges of causing financial loss of more than GH¢38 million to the state.
Mrs. Oware Mensah appeared before the Accra High Court on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, where she was formally charged with five counts—including willfully causing financial loss to the state, stealing, money laundering, and using public office for profit.
Prosecutors allege that during her tenure, the accused generated approximately 9,934 non-existent National Service personnel, and unlawfully profited from the monthly allowances disbursed under those ghost names.
The alleged infractions are said to have resulted in financial losses amounting to more than GH¢38 million to the government.
