Dr Dominic Ayine, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, on October 13, 2025, accused the former Deputy Director-General of the National Service Authority, Gifty Oware-Mensah, of money laundering, stealing from the state amounting to GH¢38,458,248.87.
The Attorney-General’s Department alleged Gifty Oware-Mensah misappropriated a total of GH¢38,458,248.87 between February 2022 and March 2024, overseeing finance, audit, and procurement at the NSA.
According to prosecutors, she dishonestly transferred GH¢31.5 million from a loan facility meant to support National Service Personnel into her private company accounts.
The said money was under the pretext of supplying goods on a hire-purchase basis; however, investigation revealed no such goods were supplied, and the names used to secure the loan were ghost names from the NSA’s internal system.
Part of the document read, “… Between February 2022 and March 2024, the accused approached officials of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and informed them that the NSA had signed an agreement with her company, Blocks of Life Consult (BLC), to sell products on hire-purchase to National Service Personnel. She claimed that she required a loan of GH¢ 78, 139, 910.00 to support her business”.
“ADB told the accused that they could not approve the loan of GH¢78,139,910.00 as it would mean they would be deducting the full allowances of the supposed NSP. The accused later agreed with the bank on the Principal sum of GH¢31,502,091.40 and interest of GH¢ 6,956 157. Forty-seven to be paid through source deduction of the 9,934 NSP allowance over 11 months.
“… The account was designated as NSA HIRE PURCHASE and had the account number 1221MPL230610001. The loan amount of GH¢ 31,502,091.40 was disbursed into the NSA HIRE PURCHASE account, and on the accursed’s instructions to the bank, the loan amount was subsequently transferred into Block of Life Consult, her company’s account number 108101016216501.”
AG also alleged, “Out of the money received, the accused transferred GH¢22,925,518,69 to Amaecom Global Company of which she was a director, and the remaining amount to three other companies.”
Gifty Oware-Mensah’s charges include “Stealing GH¢31,502,091.40 belonging to the National Service Authority. Willfully causing financial loss to the state through the fake hire-purchase arrangement, Abuse of public office for personal gain and Money laundering through the transfer of funds into personal and affiliated accounts”.
It will be recalled that Dr Dominic Ayine, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, has stated that twelve suspects will be charged in the National Service scandal.
According to the Attorney General, former Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Mustapha Ussif, former Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Osei Assibey Antwi and former Deputy Director in charge of Finance and Administration, Gifty Oware-Mensah.
He revealed that the former National Service Authority (NSA) ran a criminal enterprise which siphoned huge sums of public funds, including over GHC548 million.
The Attorney General later revealed that eight suspects had approached him for plea negotiations.
The A-G revealed that suspects demanding a plea negotiation include some officials offering to testify against their colleagues.
Speaking during a press briefing at the Government Accountability Series on Monday, July 28, 2025, Dr. Ayine explained, “The National Service Authority scandal case was due to be filed last week when we stumbled upon further evidence of malfeasance involving an account at the Bank of Ghana, to which had been transferred an amount of One Hundred and Eighty-Nine Million Ghana Cedis (Ghs 189,000,000.00).
Out of this amount, Eighty Million Ghana Cedis cannot be traced, but we found two cheques bearing the name and account details of the former Director General, Mr. Osei Assibey, which had been used to withdraw funds totalling a little under Two Million Ghana Cedis (Ghs 2m) from the said account”.
He added, “We have therefore halted the filing of charges so as to await the receipt of the evidence from the relevant state agencies, including the Bank of Ghana, Ministry of Finance and the Controller and Accountant General”.