In the last couple of months, The Fourth Estate has been revealing the details of a questionable licence granted by the previous leadership of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) to KGL Technology Litd, which essentially handed over the most profitable business of the NLA to KGL.

The Fourth Estate’s publications have revealed how the said NLA-KGL deal is enriching KGL at the expense of the state. Among many other revelations, it has been proven that while KGL generated revenue of over GHC3 billion from operating the NLA’s lottery, it was required to pay only GHC156.7 million to the state. 

The publications have also revealed how NLA’s contributions to the Consolidated Fund of Ghana have reduced from GHC37 million in 2018 (the year before the KGL deal), to ZERO contribution for the last three consecutive years (2022, 2023 and 2024).

Indeed, at a recent appearance before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, the current Director-General of the NLA, Mohammed Adul-Salam, confirmed that the state could earn far more from such a deal.

Strangely, there have been a series of curious coincidences of events that suggest the GJA, as the umbrella body of journalists, may be allowing itself to be used to counter or undermine the public-interest revelations by The Fourth Estate on the state-fleecing NLA-KGL deal. 

For example, after The Fourth Estate’s main publication on the terrible deal on September 30, the GJA organised a KGL-sponsored event at Alisa Hotel on October 9, which was used by the Executive Chairman of KGL, Alex Appau Dadey, to attack The Fourth Estate and its work. The event was covered and broadcast live by a number of media organisations.

At the said KGL-sponsored GJA event, the KGL owner said, among other things, that: “Permit me to use this distinguished platform to comment on a recent publication by the Fourth Media Estate (sic) headlined NLA hands 3 billion of prime business in exchange for peanuts. At the KGL group, we are focused on our vision of creating wealth responsibly with utmost integrity and would usually not comment on irresponsible and sensational journalism, except for the fact that we remain, as corporate Ghana does, partners of the media in nation building.”

We were hoping that the leadership of the GJA would deem it fit to openly correct the unfortunate attack and characterisation of the work of The Fourth Estate by the Group Chairman of KGL. But that did not happen, affirming the conviction that the event was essentially a sponsored event for KGL to whitewash the terrible deal, and serve as a platform to vilify The Fourth Estate.

In yet another curious development, this year’s GJA awards has been christened; “GJA/KGL Media Awards,” ostensibly to reflect and demonstrate the extraordinary financial commitment of KGL to the GJA for this year’s award. Even though all GJA awards have always been rightly supported and sponsored by corporate organisations, we struggle to recall any time in the recent past when the GJA has had to co-share the title of the awards with a corporate sponsor.

Given our revelations of how state-fleecing the NLA-KGL deal has been and our public-interest commitment, it will be unconscionable on our part to accept a KGL-sponsored award. Indeed, accepting such an award will be to benefit from the proceeds of the same terrible NLA-KGL deal that we have been exposing. 

While we will cherish any public or institutional recognition for our work, we will not do so at the risk of compromising our conscience. Indeed, it will be unconscionable on our part to receive a GJA/KGL media award when just about a month ago, KGL sponsored a GJA event and used it as a platform to describe our work as “irresponsible and sensational.”

The Fourth Estate wishes all awardees at this year’s GJA/KGL Media Awards the very best.

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So far, he has been doing a good job at getting KGL-allied media to carry his deceptive PR write-ups in defence of the terrible, state-fleecing NLA-KGL deal signed by the leadership of the NLA under the erstwhile NPP administration.

After following his deceptive write-ups for a while, it is time to expose the lies he has been feeding the public through the KLG-allied media outlets, and we do so as follows:

1. First of all, it is important for members of the public to know that the said Razak Kojo Opoku is a Consultant to KGL, as he was introduced to us by the leadership of KGL.

He was part of the KGL team when The Fourth Estate interviewed the KGL leadership in relation to our ongoing stories on the Terrible NLA-KGL deal. 

For purposes of honesty and integrity, the said Razak Kojo Opoku, should have fully disclosed in his PR write-ups and during engagements with the KGL-allied media that he is doing a paid job as a consultant to KGL.

Instead, he has been deceptively presenting himself to the public as just a former PRO of the NLA.

2. In response to The Fourth Estate’s most recent publication about NLA’s critical demands for sales and revenue records from KGL, the KGL consultant, Razak Kojo Opoku, lied to the public by stating that: “NLA’s letter was written on 7^th October 2025, but leadership of KGL received the letter on 13^th October 2025.” This is how he lies to the public.

The factual evidence obtained from our reliable sources within KGL showed that KGL responded to NLA’s October 7th letter on October 10th, as shown in the screenshot of KGL’s response below.

How could KGL respond to a letter it received on 13^th October, on 10^th October? That’s how the KGL consultant and PR agent deceives the public through the KGL-allied media houses.

3. In the same response to our latest publication, the KGL Consultant, Razak Kojo Opoku, lies to the public through the KGL-allied media by stating emphatically that: “KGL through Mr. Alex Dadey never asked NLA to defer its request to 2026. Fourth Estate Lied once again.”

Read below what the KGL letter to NLA dated October 10, and shown to The Fourth Estate by Sources within KGL states, and determine for yourself who is lying:

4. What the KGL Consultant and PR agent, Razak Kojo Opoku, conveniently refused to disclose to the public is that when KGL requested that NLA defer the request to 2026, NLA refused and wrote back to KGL that it must produce the requested data by October 17.

See below the evidence from the NLA letter refusing to defer the request to 2026, as obtained from our sources within KGL.

5. What the KGL Consultant and PR agent, Razak Kojo Opoku, again deliberately concealed from the public through his publication in the KLG-allied media, is that it was based on the refusal by NLA to defer the requested data that KGL wrote begging that they should be given up to October 31, to produce the requested data. He should know that the public deserves the truth, not lies.  

6.  What the KGL Consultant and PR Agent, Razak Kojo Opoku, did not tell the public is that the NLA request is based on Paragraph 17 of the license granted KGL under the terrible, state-fleecing NLA-KGL deal. He should have told the public that that aspect of the license agreement mandates KGL and NLA to do weekly reconciliations. Not yearly reconciliations.

Such reconciliation requires KGL to make the data requested by NLA available to NLA on a weekly basis and not annually. The KGL Consultant should have disclosed through the KGL-allied media that since the KGL contract took effect in early 2024, the previous NLA leadership did not carry out such weekly reconciliations, and such reconciliation has never been done.

He should have told the public that this is the reason the NLA, as the owner of the 5/90 lotto vehicle, does not know how much its driver, KGL, is making from the vehicle.  While this is not about GRA or Auditors, the KGL consultant constantly seeks to deceive the public through the KGL-allied media as if the required weekly reconciliation is about GRA or the Auditor General’s annual audits.

7.  When we started reporting about the terrible NLA-GKL deal that gave KGL over GHC3billion in revenues in 2024 alone, the KGL Consultant was all over and published through the KGL-allied media that KGL had made NLA profitable. He claimed KGL makes it possible for NLA to contribute tens of millions to Ghana’s Consolidated Funds.

We exposed the lies with evidence from the Ministry of Finance that proved that the plight of NLA had worsened since the KGL deal started in 2019.

We provided evidence that in 2018 (the year prior to the KGL deal), NLA made a profit of GHC37million for the state. That figure dropped to GHC17million in 2019 (the year the KGL deal began).

We provided additional evidence that in 2022, NLA made ZERO profit; in 2023, NLA made ZERO profit and in 2024, when KGL said it made only GHC70million profit as the driver of the NLA’s 5/90 car, NLA as the car owner, made ZERO profit. Then he went silent, thinking of the next lie.

8. When we said KGL started operating NLA’s 5/90 USSD online lottery illegally and was fined GHC10 million by NLA, the KGL Consultant and his allies said we lied.

They claimed that the company that operated illegally and was fined was called a certain KEED and not KGL. We produced the evidence below from the 2019 NLA-KGL license agreement. Then they went silent, thinking of the next lie to feed the public with.

We stand ready to expose every lie they put out in their allied media houses. In the interest of the nation and the public. 

Speaking on Adom FM’s morning show, Dwaso Nsem, Nana B described the report as “reckless and misleading,” accusing The Fourth Estate of failing to verify the data they obtained from the NSA.

“The report they published is nothing but lazy journalism. They failed to conduct due diligence. A simple verification process would have exposed the truth,” he said.

He explained that the NSA recruits service personnel annually from four main categories: students from public and private universities, polytechnics (now technical universities), nurses, and teachers.

According to him, some applicants fail to show up for orientation after being posted, and it is misleading to classify them as ghost names without proper verification.

“It is common for some students to apply for service but never show up. That does not make them ghost names. If The Fourth Estate had done proper checks, they would have known this,” he argued.

Nana B further stated that the NSA operates a biometric system that verifies all applicants through the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).

“The system is strict. People try to enter with fake identities, but they are detected and cannot proceed. There is no way ghost names can be in the system,” he stressed.

He also pointed out that cases of absentees could be easily verified using student index numbers.

In a strong warning to The Fourth Estate, Nana B vowed to take legal action if they fail to correct their report.

“If they don’t come out with the truth, I will take them on. I will take them to court,” he declared.

He urged The Fourth Estate to adopt a more rigorous and fact-based approach to investigative journalism instead of publishing what he described as “shoddy and unverified reports” that create unnecessary panic.

NANA B ON NSS

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]]> https://www.adomonline.com/nss-scandal-court-strikes-out-injunction-application-against-fourth-estate-fines-nsa-gh%e2%82%b56000/ Thu, 19 Dec 2024 19:14:26 +0000 https://www.adomonline.com/?p=2485803 A High Court in Accra has struck out an application for injunction filed by the National Service Authority (NSA) against the publication of an investigative report by The Fourth Estate, the investigative journalism project of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).

Lawyers for the MFWA, led by Samson Anyenini, were in court on Thursday, December 19, 2024, to file processes to challenge the case as being frivolous and abuse of the court process, and thus, to ask the court to throw out the case.

But even before the MFWA’s lawyers could mount their defense, the NSA’s lawyers from Sam Okudzeto and Associates, beat a hasty retreat. They announced to the court that they had filed a notice of discontinuance of their case.

Lawyers for the MFWA then told the court that the NSA knew very well that they had no cause of action and no capacity to sue, and thus, the discontinuance notice was a preemptive action.

Counsel for the MFWA further told the court that the NSA’s action was a SLAPP suit only for the purpose of the ex-parte injunction to serve their interest.

The case was accordingly struck out by the court. The court then awarded a cost of GHC6,000 in favour of the MFWA. The court also prohibited the NSA from coming back to court to refile the case.

The decision of the court paves the way for the publication of the story as had advertised. The story will, therefore, be released to the public soon.

On December 2, 2024, the NSA run to court on the blind side of the MFWA, to secure a 10-day Ex Parte injunction to prevent The Fourth Estate from publishing a series of investigative stories on acts of corruption that were due to be released from December 3, 2024.

The court had indicated that the Ex Patre injunction order was based on an affidavit deposed to on behalf of the NSA by Angela Ohene-Boateng, the head of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the NSA, as well as arguments by Dominic Brenya Otchere, of Sam Okudzeto and Associates, who is lawyer for the NSA.

Upon the expiration of the Ex Parte injunction on December 12, the NSA and its lawyers went back to court to seek a further injunction to prevent The Fourth Estate from publishing its story.

The NSA argued that if The Fourth Estate was allowed to publish the story into the NSA’s activities without hearing its side of the story, it would suffer “irreparable harm.”

“That the reputations of the applicant (NSA) and its management will be soiled if the respondents (MFWA and others) are allowed to proceed with their threatened publication and if it later turns out to be a false story, the injury and reputational damage occasioned cannot be reversed,” the NSA prayed the court.

Meanwhile, prior the court case and ahead of the announcement of the intended publication, The Fourth Estate had offered the leadership of the NSA the opportunity to respond to the issues being investigated. The efforts made to get their side of the story included an official letter requesting for an interview.

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About 12 hours before the first publication, a court bailiff served the Media Foundation for West Africa, the organisation that runs The Fourth Estate project, with an injunction from the High Court.

“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Defendant/Respondents, its privies, servants, agents, assigns and interested parties are hereby restrained from putting out any purported investigative report concerning the Plaintiff/Applicant and its staff until their side of the subject matter of the investigations is heard and included in the said report,” the injunction document stated.

On Friday, November 29, The Fourth Estate announced that from this week, it would be publishing a series of investigative reports on the National Service Authority.

However, the NSA filed an injunction application today, December 2, and secured a court order on the blind side of The Fourth Estate to prevent the publication this week.

The Fourth Estate, in its latest exposé, has named some government officials and members of the governing party reportedly using their companies to mine in protected forest reserves that threaten both the forests and some water bodies.

They named several officials, including Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Chairman Wontumi, Kumasi Mayor Sam Pyne, and the NPP’s 2024 Parliamentary candidate for Juaben, Francis Owusu-Akyaw, among others.

The Fourth Estate revealed that while some of these officials publicly advocate for environmental sustainability and tree planting, their companies are involved in activities that threaten the existence of forest reserves.

Following the exposé, concerned citizens took to Facebook to express their displeasure over the alleged misconduct of these officials, only to find their posts removed or blocked by Facebook for violating “community standards.”

However, some social media users have speculated that elements within the government may be behind this as a form of censorship.

Below are a few comments from the platform.

When reached for comments on the development, a source at The Fourth Estate told Myjoyonline that the public interest journalism outfit has written to Facebook to seek clarity on the matter.

Source: Myjoyonline.com  

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The petition, submitted by Evans Aziamor-Mensah of The Fourth Estate on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, is on the back of his investigations which revealed that at the time the contract was awarded, Busy Internet owed the state GHS17 million in taxes and Social Security and National Insurance Trust being payments from December 2018 to 2022, making it ineligible to bid for or be awarded any government contract.

Busy Internet was awarded the contract on a sole-source basis, with an agreement to be paid GHS6.3 million by the government every month for internet services for five years.

The Ministry of Education paid Busy Internet GHS63.7 million between 2020 and 2022 and an additional GHS56 million between January and September 2023, for its services at a time when some of these schools had no internet service.

In May 2023, the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) approved an increment in the monthly recurrent expenditure from GHS6.3 million to GHS11.5 million. The PPA transferred the contract from Busy Internet to Lifted Logistics which was not a licensed Internet service provider then.

It has also since been revealed by Member of Parliament for Builsa South and ranking member of the  Education Committee in Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak, that the contract was awarded without parliamentary approval.

“I filed a series of questions to the Minister for Education seeking information regarding this policy… these questions were filed in 2021, and I am yet to get responses from the Minister or his representative.

“And the reason why I filed those questions was because as a member of the education committee, we had not seen a contract, we didn’t know the company that the government had awarded the contract to, we didn’t know the terms and conditions of that contract, we didn’t know the processes by which the selected company or companies were awarded the contract,” he revealed on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM on Monday, June 10, 2024.

The OSP acknowledged the petition, stating: “Thank you for bringing this matter to the attention of the Office of the Special Prosecutor. We take such reports very seriously. Your complaint will be forwarded to the Special Prosecutor’s secretariat for the necessary action and response.”

Students had gathered in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) lab, tapping their fingers impatiently on keyboards with exasperating sighs.

In contrast, others muttered under their breaths in frustration, desperately trying to connect to the internet.With time slipping away and their assignment deadline fast approaching, disappointment was etched on their faces as the blank screens on their computer monitors flashed with the inscription, “No internet access.”

Accra Academy Senior High School (SHS) was one of over 700 schools connected to the internet as part of the government’s Wi-Fi for Schools programme. For a while, jumping on the information superhighway was a breeze for both students and tutors. But within a year, the internet was no longer available. The school was disconnected.

“The internet stopped working when we were in Form 2,” says a final-year student. “We no longer use it at the ICT lab.”

The headmaster, Emmanuel Ofie Fiemawhle, explains that the government-supplied internet only worked for a year but was always unstable. Complaints have been filed. He claims that the company responsible for the network has failed to respond positively or meaningfully.

The Old Students Association has since intervened to keep Accra Academy’s vital administrative functions connected to the Internet. Currently, it is only the school’s administration, accounts office and data room that are connected, said the headmaster. The ICT lab and the libraries, where students usually go for research, are without an internet connection.

The situation is no better at Labone SHS, also in Accra. Although the school has the IT infrastructure installed by the government, the internet has never worked. A member of the management of the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they currently rely on Telecel Ghana’s internet service. However, this service is only accessible in the school’s administrative block, which houses the headmaster and other management staff.

At the Bolgatanga SHS (Big Boss), an E-learning centre sits in the heart of the school. The centre was put up to facilitate teaching and virtual learning among students while assisting teachers to undertake academic research and prepare their lessons. But a year after it was opened, Wi-Fi internet connectivity stopped working.

This has not only affected the E-learning centre and the purpose it was supposed to serve. It has also affected the preparation of lesson notes by teachers. Since the Wi-Fi stopped working, staff have had to use their mobile data to conduct online research.

Authorities say several complaints to the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education have yielded no results. Despite this challenge, Bolgatanga Senior High qualified for two national championships – the National Science and Maths Quiz in 2023 and the Energy Commission’s Senior High Schools Renewable Energy Challenge in 2022. However, the unavailability of internet connectivity affected preparations as the students could not hold virtual lessons and conduct research work online, forcing the school to opt out of both competitions.

“This is frustrating and demoralizing,” a student, who did not want to be named, said of the situation.

The free Wi-Fi for schools’ programme was in fulfilment of a 2016 manifesto promise by the governing New Patriotic Party to collaborate “with the private sector [to] provide free Wi-Fi coverage for senior secondary and tertiary institutions nationwide, dedicated to learning, administration and enhancing the capacity to do research.”

According to the project contractor, the policy resulted in the connection of over 1,000 institutions to the Internet as of February 2024. Apart from the SHSs, 16 regional education offices, 46 colleges of education and 260 district education offices were also expected to be connected within a year.

Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who launched the initiative in February 2020, said it was part of a broader programme to bridge the technology gap in the country and improve learning through internet use.

“There is much knowledge on the internet and we have to allow senior high schools to access that knowledge. We promised free Wi-Fi and we are going to deliver,” Dr Bawumia said at a town hall meeting in Kumasi in 2020.

The project, Dr Bawumia said, will be “a [leveler] of academic opportunities” and provide “an equal opportunity window to the world of [the] Internet of Things.”

Almost four years after the launch of the programme, the lofty promises are yet to be fulfilled and a number of schools are without internet connection in Ghana. Yet, GHS56 million has been paid to Busy Internet, an internet service provider, which appears to have since folded up, and its contract is now assigned to a company called Lifted Logistics, which only secured a conditional internet service provider (ISP) license in February 2024.

When the contract was awarded for the provision of internet services to schools in December 2019, the intent was to have school administration blocks, libraries and the ICT labs connected. However, 48 of the 50 schools Evans Aziamor-Mensah of The Fourth Estate visited between June and July 2023 had no internet connectivity.

Service provider’s unresponsiveness angers school IT co-ordinators

To ensure effective communication on the internet connection, Busy Internet (now Lifted Logistics) created a dedicated line for the schools to lodge complaints about disruptions. It also created a WhatsApp platform for school IT coordinators across the country. In the Bono and Ahafo regions, though the coordinators reported the challenges they were facing with the Wi-Fi connectivity, Busy Internet failed to act.

“The network has been down for a long time. At the regional level, we always get complaints but when we channel it, we don’t get any proper response from your end. I can say for a fact that all schools, districts and regional offices are facing the same challenge. The internet is not working especially Bono Region,” one of the co-ordinators wrote on the WhatsApp platform in May 2023.

At another time on May 15, 2023, when one of the Busy Internet supervisors asked for an update in the WhatsApp group, it drew the anger of the IT coordinators.

“There’s no Wi-Fi anywhere. It’s a white elephant,” one of the coordinators responded.

“At times, it is irritating to ask such a question,” another coordinator wrote.

“Why?” the Busy supervisor asked.

“Are you not the managers and providers of the service? You should know best,” the IT coordinator responded.

Busy Internet, Education Ministry’s responses

Business Lead of Lifted Logistics, Dickinson Agyapong Bempa, told The Fourth Estate that the company did not present any bill to the government of Ghana for the months it did not provide service to certain schools. But this claim is false.

Accra Academy, Labone Senior High School, and Bolgatanga Girls have been without internet under the Busy Internet project for periods of up to 24 months. However, they featured prominently on a list of schools whose internet services Lifted Logistics invoiced and received payments for.

The company also received payments for St Mary’s SHS, Korle Gonno, Fafraha Community Day SHS, Ada Technical, Nungua SHS, Presby SHS, Teshie Presbyterian SHS, Ashaiman SHS, Kpedze SHS, Toase SHS, Bawku and Adugyama SHSs between 2020 and 2023 but all of these schools had no internet access for those years.

A policy advocacy organisation, Africa Education Watch, has also conducted research and found that 107 schools out of 150 visited across the country were not enjoying any benefits under the free Wi-Fi for schools project.

Demand for value-for-money audit

Divine Kpe, a senior programmes manager at Eduwatch, says Ghana seems to be paying for a service that is not being rendered and called for an investigation into the project.

“… if we have invested about GHS 84 million for installation,” he says “and we have to pay GHS6.3 million for the next five years and yet the students and the teachers cannot access the service then there’s no value for money.” Mr Kpe says there is a need for the Auditor-General to look into that.

The Fourth Estate wrote to the Minister of Education for responses to these revelations. The Minister directed that we speak to the Executive Director for the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling, Nana Gyamfi Adwabour, who revealed that a monitoring system was set up to review the contract with Busy Internet in September 2023, almost three years into the implementation of the project.

Nana Gyamfi Adwabour also admitted that apart from the manual verification by a committee, there was no real-time monitoring system in place for the project until September 2023. Such a monitoring system was to be installed as part of Busy Internet’s obligations under the contract.

One of the legal wires that binds the government and Busy Internet in the contract was that, if Busy Internet failed to deliver its service to a school for 15 days, the company would not be paid. This legal wire was tripped not just for 15 days in some schools. As The Fourth Estate has learned, some schools did not have internet for as long as two years.

President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) who is also the headmaster of Opoku Ware Senior High School in Kumasi, Rev Fr Stephen Owusu Sekyere, said the internet outages have been affecting teaching and learning in schools.

“At times, it goes off for about 2-3 weeks, other times, a month and then it’s restored but as we speak, my school has been off for over a month now and it’s not helping us at all,” he told The Fourth Estate on May 4, this year.

He continued: “We can’t use the service to improve teaching and learning in our schools.”

When The Fourth Estate sent a list of 53 schools without internet spanning 2020 to July 2023 to Lifted Logistics, the company failed to provide any information on that, stating “Busy Internet, which was in charge of this implementation at the time, has since suspended operations.”

Mr Agyapong-Bempa, however, said, “We have from August 2023 provided a monitoring system, which we gave you a briefing at our last meeting.”

Mr Agyapong-Bempa’s excuse that they could not provide the information on whether a school’s internet was functional or not until August 2023 because Busy Internet suspended its operations for those years is not accurate. This is because Lifted Logistics bought Busy Internet in 2018, a year before the contract was awarded and all payments for work done were made to Lifted Logistics.

If some schools did not have internet for more than 15 days as stipulated in the contract, why did the government of Ghana continue to pay the company for services in these schools? The Fourth Estate asked Nana Gyamfi Adwabour of the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling.

“I think this is a clear case for us to review again those two monitoring mechanisms to protect the public purse,” was his response.

Despite multiple requests for information, since July 2023, the Ministry of Education has refused to provide a monthly breakdown of what it has paid Busy Internet since January 2020.

Nana Gyamfi Adwabour also promised to provide the data after the interview on May 6, 2024, but failed to do so.

The Business lead of Lifted Logistics, Mr Bempa denied knowledge of how much his agency has so far received from the contract from the government.

But so far what we know is that the company received GHC56 million for work it supposedly did for nine months for which it cannot show any tangible results because most schools don’t have the services they were supposed to provide. This period includes the months The Fourth Estate visited and observed that the internet was not working in 48 out of 50 schools.

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Investigations by The Fourth Estate, however, revealed that the GNAT Hall had been turned into a market where placements into top senior high schools could be bought like commodities.

Top officials linked to the placement executed their trade through a network of intermediaries, mostly security guards and cleaners at the GNAT Hall.

It was easy to mistake them for scammers blowing hot air about their connections, but, as our investigation revealed, a cleaner who took your money at the GNAT Hall was capable of placing a student you presented in a school which only two top officials in Ghana’s educational system–the Minister of Education and the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES)–had the password to effect such placements.

Parents who paid and got their wards placed in the country’s top and well-resourced schools were unwilling to cooperate with us on this story, so we went undercover to ascertain the veracity of the allegations.

At the GNAT Hall, we found a parent who wanted her ward’s school changed from Apam Senior High School, a category B school to Mfantsiman Senior High School, a category A school. She, however, had no money to pay the amount the placement officials, through their intermediaries, were demanding.

We spotted a neatly dressed security man who was about to deliver a brown envelope to a man and his daughter outside the GNAT Hall. We approached him and asked if he could help us with placement into a top secondary school.

“I can help you, but it’s money. You have to pay,” he said.

We agreed and asked to be introduced to the individuals involved.

This security man, who we later got to know as Isaac Adorkor, led us to a seat near one of the conference halls at the GNAT Hall.

After about forty-five minutes of waiting, a man in a bright-blue shirt with “UAS Specialist Cleaning Services” embossed on the left breast appeared. We later got to know his name as Eric Aggrey, a janitor at the GNAT Hall.

He made a call after a short conversation with us and informed a supposed Ghana Education Service (GES) staff, whose phone number he saved as Biggie, of our need for a placement.

When the call ended, Eric told us Biggie’s charges were too high, but he had another person who could be trusted. He later called one Rachel, who he said could help.

 “Wesley Girls is GH₵10,000 but Mfantsiman is GH₵ 7,000,” he told us.

He assured us that he could lead us to Rachel’s house should she renege on her promise to secure the placement we needed.

Eric said aside from being a staffer at the Ministry of Education, Rachel worked with the Education Minister’s secretary. Rachel also made this claim, but when we pushed for evidence, she could not prove it.

Eric charged GH₵ 7,000 to change the placement of our student from Apam Senior High to Mfantsiman Girls Senior High School.

When the money was ready, he said Rachel had changed her mind. Rachel demanded GH₵8,500 and ended the call when we asked for a reduction.

After several pleas, Eric, Rachel’s middleman, eventually settled on GH₵ 7,500 to change placement from Apam Senior High School to Mfantsiman Girls Senior High School.

When the placement was delayed and we called Eric for answers, he introduced us to a man he said was called Nathaniel to reassure us that the placement would be effected.

Our investigations would later reveal his true identity to be Simon Bessa Aggrey, Eric’s younger brother, a deacon of the Apostolic church, Kwashieman, last stop branch.

Simon revealed that the student had already enrolled in Apam Senior High School, and it would be difficult for the placement to be changed.

Due to the difficulty we encountered in changing the placement of the student who had already enrolled, we presented another student who wanted her placement changed from Accra Wesley Girls’ High School in Kaneshie, Accra, to Aggrey Memorial AME Zion Senior High School in Cape Coast.

Her parents wanted her placed in a school in Cape Coast, closer to Takoradi where the family lived.  She had not selected Aggrey Memorial as part of the six schools during the school selection process. But when we contacted Eric, he assured us that he could make the change.

He charged an extra GH₵ 1,000 to top up the GH₵ 7,500 he had demanded to change the placement to Mfantsiman Girls. The reporter agreed to pay only after the change was made.

In less than 24 hours, Eric made the change.

At 9:16 am on Tuesday, April 12, the student’s phone beeped. It was a congratulatory message from Aggrey Memorial Senior High School and a directive on her registration.
According to officials of the school placement system, schools like Aggrey Memorial, KSTS and Ghana National are more sought-after than some category A schools.

Eric and Nathaniel called to find out whether the change had reflected and demanded the remaining GH₵ 1,000 to be paid. We transferred the money to them through mobile money.

Placement from Aburi Presby High School to Mfantsiman Girls

We presented another student who was placed at Aggrey Memorial Zion Senior High School but wanted Wesley Girls Senior High School, one of the most prestigious senior high schools in Ghana.

School had reopened for two weeks, but she had not enrolled because she hoped to get her school placement changed. Eric demanded GH₵ 11,000 cedis from a previous GH₵ 10,000 to make that change. He said a parent had decided to sell a slot, the reason for the increment in the price.

He took the money and assured us that the deal would be done the following day. He failed to place the student in Wesley Girls. Nathaniel claimed it was because a higher authority was in charge of placement into that school.

He indicated that some “top officials at the education ministry have hijacked the system, making it impossible for people like me in the strong room to make any change.”

He offered an option. There was vacancy at the Holy Child Girls Senior High School in Cape Coast. It is also an A school, but he had access to it. “If a new person was to be presented for the placement to Holy Child, you need to pay more,” Nathaniel said.

He claimed the contract terms had changed and would not accept a new girl until more money was paid to him.  We refused the offer.

Nathaniel, in his bid to shore up his credibility, spoke extensively about his role in the Apostolic church, a reason for which he could not be a cheat.

On Easter Sunday, we went to the Mount Olive Assembly of the Apostolic church, Kwashieman District.  In the midst of singing and dancing in the church, Nathaniel was busy on the phone and his laptop.

It was during our visit to the church that we established contact with him for the first time and got to know he was known as Deacon Simon Bessa Aggrey, and not the Nathaniel he used when dealing with us during the school placement.

Eric and Simon said there was a vacancy at Holy Child, so we had to present another student who was interested in that school. She was initially placed at Aburi Presbyterian Senior Technical High School. They demanded more money for this, but we refused to pay. After two weeks, they failed to change the placement of the student in Holy Child.

They kept giving excuses until we confronted Eric, who then led us to Rachel’s house. In our presence, she made some calls and said the available category A slot at the time was Mfantsiman Girls’  Senior High School.

Within a week after visiting her, the change of placement was done.

In all, Eric and his network demanded and took GH₵ 19,500 for placing two candidates at Aggrey Memorial and Mfantsiman Girls, both in the Central Region.

A rejection, GH₵ 5000, and the demand for higher fees

While the changes were ongoing, another network of security personnel was also engaging in other deals to get students placed in their schools of choice. We met Emmanuel Sowatey and Kaba Navaro, both security personnel stationed at the main entrance to the GNAT Hall.

Seated in Kaba’s small office, was a middle-aged woman, who was there to change her ward’s placement.

When we presented the placement slip of a student who wanted placement at Apam Senior High School, Kaba with confirmation from Emmanuel charged GH₵ 4,000 to secure placement at the category B Apam Senior High School in the Central Region.

He listed the successes he had chalked since the placement portal was opened for the selection of schools to assure the reporter of his capabilities.

A few minutes later, Kaba forwarded the student’s documents through WhatsApp, to one Alex, who he said works at the CSSPS in Accra.

Subsequently, Kaba introduced the reporter to Eric after his failure to place the student.

Eric showed us all the vacancies available in the category ‘A’ schools to prove that he could help with the placement.

While going through the schools, we told Eric we could only raise GH₵ 5,000, leaving GH₵ 3,500 shy of the GH₵ 8,500 he demanded.

We wanted the candidate to be placed at Archbishop Porter Girls in Takoradi. Eric said it would come at a cost.

He said we had to part ways with GH₵ 8,500 each to have placement in the school.

With a phone in one hand and another itchy-empty palm, Eric took the brown envelope containing GH₵ 5,000.

When Eric counted the money he had demanded from The Fourth Estate reporter, he remarked, “your money is small and she [ Rachel] will not accept it.”

“Just this morning, I changed someone’s placement for her, “Eric tooted his own horn.

He said he was ready to effect the change but our GH₵ 5,000 was too small to cause the seismic change from Presbyterian Senior High Technical School, Aburi to Aburi Girls in the Eastern Region, Mfantsiman Girls in the Central Region, or Archbishop Porter Girls in Takoradi, Western Region.

According to the Education Minister, the protocol list is what some unscrupulous people sell to those who want their wards placed in high-category schools.

“For example, headmaster’s protocols, we don’t question where those children are coming from. All that we do is approve it when they upload it on their portal”.

A former coordinator of the CSSPS, Dr George Atta Boateng says the protocol system used to be a 30 per cent quota for communities within the catchment area of the school.

That system has now been changed. The protocol system of placing candidates is now 10 per cent, which is shared equally between the Ministry of Education and the Schools.

This means people like Rachel who are able to place students either have links to the ministry or the schools. We could not get evidence of her links to the schools, but we established she had links to the Ministry of Education. She was in charge of the canteen at the Ministry of Education, until the canteen was shut down for refurbishment. Our sources at the ministry of education also say Rachel constantly called some of them asking for placement vacancies.

Whatever her source of vacancy was, only two persons had the passwords for placement into category A schools.

Only two persons have password to category A schools

Although the minister said GES Director-General’s office and the Education Ministry had access to Category A schools, our checks revealed that full access to such protocol placement was limited to only two individuals.

“In reality, we have two; the Director-General’s office and the Ministry of Education. Last year, those are the two people with access.

“If only two people have access to category A schools, you are able to tell who did the placement for a certain student so if these allegations that a parent has paid money, and this student has found himself in this school, you go into the system IT people are able to tell which of the two people did the placement so it becomes much easier. And you know this is the area where people are scamming parents because they are the most desirable schools,” the minister said.

A memo that was circulated within the Ministry of Education on the 2022 placement shows that only the Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi  Opoku-Amankwa, and the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, had full access to the most sought-after category A schools. This means the placement made by Rachel into Mfantsiman Girls had to be approved by either the minister or the GES Director-General.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa, however, told The Fourth Estate that just a week after placement had commenced in 2022, his access to the backend of the placement system was revoked.

“In 2021, initially, I had access, but my access was revoked for a period to ensure that some updates were done and when it was restored, the opportunities were taken away,” he said.

“For 2022, I only had access to the backend and the opportunity to do changes and to see whatever was going on in the system for just about the first week of the placement. Subsequently, my access was blocked,” he added.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa requests for investigations and obstacles

During the 2022 placement process, Professor Opoku-Amankwa, who was unhappy about corruption in the placement, wrote to the National Intelligence Bureau and the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service to investigate allegations of corruption in the placement process. Part of his letter to the two-state security agencies reads:

“In some instances, fingers have been pointed at top officials of the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service/Computerised School Selection and Placement System and the Free SHS Secretariat. Management of Ghana Education Education Service will be grateful if your office could launch a full-scale investigation into these allegations to establish their authenticity or otherwise.”

The Fourth Estate understands that the NIB initially agreed and started the investigation, but exactly one month later, it wrote to the GES asking: “You may redirect your request to the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service for the necessary action.”

The GES had already also petitioned the police CID the same day it wrote to the NIB.

When asked about the progress of investigations, the minister of education said he did not have any data to speak to the issue immediately but said the security agencies were working on it.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa said aside from the first day he was interviewed by the CID as part of the investigations, the probe into the school placement fraud did not progress any further.

“The NIB responded first,” he told The Fourth Estate. “They brought a gentleman, Francis, and his team to start investigations on the system, but somewhere along the line, they pulled out of the investigations and then exactly a month after my letter, they sent me a note to indicate that I should rather refer the issue to the CID. Two weeks later, the CID also came in with the team to start their investigations. They did the entry interview with me and that was where it ended.”

The Fourth Estate sources say these investigations were stopped by “powers from above.”

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa could not pursue this matter to the end. He was removed from office that same year.

When The Fourth Estate concluded our investigations and wanted the police involved in arresting the perpetrators, the CID headquarters agreed to work with us. A team from the Financial Forensic Unit was assigned to work with us. But there was a sudden withdrawal of the team and we were directed to report the matter to the Ministries Police Station.

The minister and I should take responsibility

Prof Poku-Amankwa said he and the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, should be held responsible in the case of any fraud associated with the placement of students into senior high schools.

“If there is fraud in the matter, then I, as the Director-General, and the minister, should take responsibility. I fully accept and agree, but I knew that I was part of it and I wanted to actually make sure that there were no challenges with it. I took measures to ensure that the issues relating to corruption and payment of money have been dealt with and I wrote to the CID and BNI.”

The arrest of the computerised school placement fraudsters

In all, the police have arrested eight suspects in connection with the school placement fraud uncovered by The Fourth Estate. None of them is from the Education Ministry, GES or the FREE SHS Secretariat as mentioned in Professor Opoku-Amankwa’s letters to the CID and NIB. It is also evident that Rachel could not have placed a student into Mfantsiman Girls without the approval of the Minister of Education or the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, the only two individuals with passwords to Category A schools.

How the names of students got to the Education Minister or the GES Director-General for placement into category A school is easy to find, according to the Minister’s explanation. It is, however, not clear if the police will follow this case to the top since there is evidence that the top hierarchy of the security agencies failed to investigate the matter when the GES Director-General requested the investigation.

Eight suspects face prosecution

Eric shook his head in the courtroom and stamped his feet while casting a menacing look at The Fourth Estate team members present in court. Eric Aggrey, 36, had been behind bars for four days.

Eric and Rachel were arrested at Awoshie Busia by policemen from the Accra Central Police Station after we presented the evidence gathered.

We had lured Eric to Rachel’s house for their “reward” for changing placement for the two students when the police arrested them. Rachel shouted “Jesus” while Eric was seated and uttered no words until he was handcuffed.

When we asked Eric what his role was in the placement, he said he had helped in the placement of the two students. He confessed to taking money from some people and helped to change the placement. He also admitted to receiving a list of vacancies at schools from Rachel.

Rachel also admitted and mentioned another person, a private security guard at a basic school opposite her house as the facilitator for everyone she had assisted to get placement changed.

Rachel said the security guard, called Isaac Mensah, also gave the money he collected to his friend whom she (Rachel) had never met. Isaac was arrested by the police to assist with investigations.

Isaac told the team about his role in the placement process and later mentioned the name of another person, Sebastian, also known as Thriller.

Sebastian Appram,28, was subsequently arrested.

Gilbert Afriyie Nkrumah, 23, a member of the syndicate who works at the Fisheries Commission, Tema regional office, was invited to the Accra Central Police station and was subsequently arrested on October 28, 2022.

Two suspects on the run

Three other members have been arrested: Bernard Kusi Agyemang, an operations Manager with a logistics company; Eugenia Abigail Ahiable, an administrator and Daniel Opoku, a foreman. Daniel Opoku also named twin brothers, Atta Kuffuor Senior, a Lab Technician and Atta Kuffuor Junior, an IT expert as the ones who finally effected the placement to Mfantsiman. The twins were already on the run for a similar offence, Daniel Opoku told the Police in his statement.

The court granted four of the members a GH₵ 30,000 bail with three sureties.

Chief Inspector Benneh, who is the state prosecutor, read the charges out and said though the suspects were not public servants, they have conspired with a public servant who used his/her office for private gains.

“Using public office for profit [ inserted by act 458, sec 3] contrary to section 179C [B] of the criminal offences act 1960[Act 29],” the charge read.

The court granted all eight of them GHS 80,000 bail each, with 3 sureties.

Background of Computerised School Placement System

The Ministry of Education introduced the Computerised School Placement System in 2005 to eliminate corruption in the placement process into Senior High Schools across the country.

It was also to promote efficiency, fairness, and transparency and speed up the placement process.

This process was also introduced to make education accessible to all according to Article 25 clause 1(b) of the 1992 constitution which states that “secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means.”

“Heads of school usually hold regional conferences where they select the students based on their grades. But there was this controversial issue as to how we could be so sure about two students who obtained grade six. If you and I obtain grade 6, and we all choose to do science at Prempeh College, then it means Prempeh has to choose one if they only need one student.

In this case which one would you choose because the grades are the same?”

Seventeen years after its introduction, however, corruption continues to eat away the integrity of the system, enabling those who can afford to pay huge amounts to get access to the choicest of schools.

Those who are paid to resolve the problem have become the problem as The Fourth Estate found during its investigations.

Some heads of Senior High Schools report constant fluctuations in admission numbers as a yearly occurrence.

At the Wesley Girls Senior High School, for instance, a source told The Fourth Estate that the numbers were no different from the previous years when the government was using the double track system. However, the science classes which were usually 14 had increased to 15 classes.

At Mfantsipim Senior High School, the school had enrolled 1100 first-year students in 2021 for both tracks but in the 2022 single track, the number had increased to 1406. This compelled school authorities to increase the number of science classes from 14-17.

The number of classes for the General Arts programme had also gone up by two.

The treasurer for the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), Emmanuel Fiemawhle, told The Fourth Estate that there was a need to have a review of the current CSSPS to ease the burden on heads of Senior High Schools.

The Executive Director of the education think-tank, Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare chastised the Ministry of Education for the role it continues to play in fueling the challenges and called for a more transparent placement system.

“The point we have gotten to now is worse than 15 years ago when headmasters were doing admissions. The reason we brought in CSSPS was that many headmasters had become corrupt. It was a gold mine for admissions, and we wanted to end that system and bring in a much more meritorious and equitable system that all citizens could trust.

“But we have gotten to the point where the essence to end the old so-called corrupt system has been defeated. The current one is without a doubt more corrupt than the previous one and people are not too happy but the few are happy because they are able to pay GHS 10,000, GHS 15,000 for placement etc.”

Watch expose below:

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