The Auditor-General’s Office has revealed that they wrongfully attributed GH¢427,995,661.40 in unearned salaries to a single public servant, Frank Oliver Kpodo.
According to the Auditor-General’s Office in a press release dated April 21, 2026, the GH¢427,995,661.40 in unearned salaries relates to payroll irregularities involving 3,476 unaccounted staff under the Ministry of Education.
They further disclosed that unearned salaries attributed to the Ministry of Defence were GH¢427,920.01.
In a press release dated April 21, 2026, signed by Assistant Director of Audit Frederick Lokko clarified the earlier mistake, saying, “The Office of the Auditor-General has noted with grave concern a media publication citing Mr Frank Oliver Kpodo (a public servant) as having received an unearned salary of GHC427,995,661.40 per the Auditor-General’s report on the Nationwide Payroll Audit for the period 1 January 2023 to 30 June 2025, dated 20 November 2025.
We wish to state that the amount attributed to Mr Kpodo above was due to a transpositional error. The GHC427,995,661.40 relates to the Ministry of Education respect of 3,476 unaccounted staff during the payroll audit.
We offer our most sincere and unreserved apologies to Mr Frank Oliver Kpodo for the distress and unwarranted public scrutiny this error may have caused.
We further extend our apologies to the Government and people of Ghana, and the Controller and Accountant-General for the transpositional error noted above”.
It will be recalled that reports by the Fourth Estate detailed that Frank Oliver Kpodo, a former Director of Procurement at the Ministry of Defence, has been exposed for allegedly receiving over GHS427 million in unearned salaries.
Reports suggest that Frank Oliver Kpodo received an average of more than GHS14 million per month.
The Fourth Estate in a post on X highlighted how Frank Oliver Kpodo’s unearned salaries featured prominently in a recent report by the Auditor-General between January 2023 and June 2025.
Reports by the Fourth Estate stated, “Three weeks ago, officials from the ministry appeared before the committee over a GHS4.8 million contract for six SUVs intended for border surveillance and election monitoring.
Although a Stores Receipt Advice (SRA) had been issued to confirm delivery, checks revealed the vehicles had never been supplied, raising concerns among members of the PAC over falsified documentation on the undelivered vehicles.
They called for Mr Kpodo to be interdicted from his current role at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as the Director of Finance and Administration. They also recommended his prosecution.
In his Payroll Audit Report for 2025, the Auditor-General recommended that the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department should “immediately delete” Mr Kpodo’s name from the payroll, along with those of some 6,000 other individuals who received monies for no work done”.
The Auditor-General recommended, “Principal Spending Officers should discontinue the validation of these individuals and recover the total amount of GH¢801,808,427.04 as unearned salaries paid to them, failing which the Principal Spending Officers and the Validators should pay”.
However, the Fourth Estate has disclosed that Mr Frank Kpodo has labelled the audit findings as “worrying and surprising,” adding that he could not “imagine how that can happen”.
According to him, his salary was processed through the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department with pay slips that can be independently verified, insisting that he was unaware of any irregularities and could not explain how such payments could have occurred.
Meanwhile, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has defended the government payroll system while rejecting claims that a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence received unearned salaries totalling GH¢427 million over 29 months.
According to the CAGD, Ghana’s payroll system makes such payments “impossible.”
The CAGD highlighted that its systems include safeguards that include variance analysis, condition-of-service verification, and bank-level payment reconciliation to ensure accuracy in the processing of the payroll.
In a statement issued on April 20, 2026, the CAGD dismissed the allegations and defended the government payroll system, saying, “The Government of Ghana payroll system runs on controls and automations which allow only approved pay structures by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to be processed for employees eligible by their conditions of service”.
“Monthly salaries are paid to eligible employees on the Government of Ghana payroll after online validation… These monthly payments are further subjected to internal quality processes to validate each salary payment,” it said.
“It is therefore impossible under the current payroll arrangement to pay a government employee salary in excess of what is legally due that employee,” the statement said.
See the statement below: