The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has revealed a complex fraud scheme involving the former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, who allegedly orchestrated the misappropriation of over GH¢30 million in public funds.
Speaking at a press briefing in Accra on June 13, Dr. Ayine detailed how Oware-Mensah exploited the National Service Personnel (NSP) allowance system to secure a hefty loan of approximately GH¢30.7 million from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) at an unusually high interest rate of 23%. The loan was backed by NSP allowances, which were used as collateral without proper authorization.
Central to the scheme was a company named “Blocks of Life Consult,” reportedly registered by Oware-Mensah using the identities of unsuspecting individuals. The company, presented to ADB through an intermediary, Maxwell Akwesi Ofori-Mintah, was falsely portrayed as a vendor supplying home appliances to National Service personnel under a hire-purchase arrangement. Oware-Mensah’s husband, Peter Mensah, a lawyer, acted as one of the company’s representatives during the loan transaction.
Dr. Ayine also disclosed that during the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 service years, nearly 10,000 fictitious names were used to siphon funds, facilitating the diversion of large sums into several company accounts linked to the scheme. Among these, GH¢22.9 million was funneled to AMAECOM—a company directed by Oware-Mensah herself—while other amounts were sent to companies including Scafold, OTCHEY, and Aristo Logistics and Trading.
This elaborate operation, currently under investigation by the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) taskforce, is described by the Attorney General as a “deliberate and sophisticated attempt to loot state resources.” He warned that further legal proceedings are imminent as authorities continue to unravel the extent of the financial misconduct at the NSA.
