Gifty Oware-Mensah Accused of Orchestrating GHS 30m Financial Scam at National Service Authority
Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has revealed that former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, masterminded a complex fraudulent scheme that led to the misappropriation of over GH¢30 million in public funds.
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Friday, June 13, Dr. Ayine indicated that the revelation forms part of ongoing investigations by the government’s anti-corruption taskforce, Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), into widespread financial malfeasance at the NSA.
According to Dr. Ayine, the scheme centred on the manipulation of the National Service Personnel (NSP) allowance system. Oware-Mensah is alleged to have used the allowances as collateral to secure a GH¢30.7 million loan from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) at a 23% interest rate.
“Some directors, such as Gifty Oware-Mensah, created and executed a meticulously detailed plan, using NSP allowances as security to obtain a loan of thirty million six hundred and ninety-eight thousand, two hundred and eighteen cedis, sixty-nine pesewas (GH¢30,698,218.69) from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) at an interest rate of twenty-three percent,” Dr. Ayine stated.
The Attorney General further disclosed that Oware-Mensah registered a company, “Blocks of Life Consult,” with falsified identities—using names of individuals without their knowledge—and submitted the entity to ADB through a middleman, Maxwell Akwesi Ofori-Mintah.
Her husband, Peter Mensah, a legal practitioner, was reportedly involved in the process, acting as one of the company’s representatives. The company was presented to ADB as a vendor supplying home appliances to National Service personnel on a hire-purchase basis, with repayment supposedly to be managed through NSA payroll deductions.
However, Dr. Ayine clarified that Blocks of Life Consult was neither a registered vendor with the Authority nor officially approved to conduct such transactions.
The Attorney General also disclosed that between the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 service years, Oware-Mensah deployed 9,934 ghost names to siphon funds from the NSA system.
Following the disbursement of the loan from ADB, the funds were channelled into four separate company accounts.
These included:
• GH¢22,925,518.69 to AMAECOM, a company in which Oware-Mensah is listed as a director,
• GH¢1,000,000.00 to Scafold, linked to an associate, Abraham Gaisie,
• GH¢1,572,700.00 to OTCHEY, and
• GH¢5,200,000.00 to Aristo Logistics and Trading.
Dr. Ayine described the scheme as “a deliberate and sophisticated attempt to loot state resources,” adding that further legal action is expected as the investigations progress.
The latest revelations add to mounting concerns over accountability and financial governance at the NSA, which has come under intense scrutiny following recent audits and internal reviews.
