Henry Nana Boakye, National Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has strongly criticised the Fourth Estate’s investigative report on the National Service Authority (NSA) scandal, describing it as “shoddy work” and “lazy journalism.”
In an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Tuesday February 18, Boakye highlighted the lack of proper verification in the report.
“It’s a shoddy work, it’s a lazy journalism. They didn’t do any proper verification,” he said.
He explained that the NSA conducts four different types of postings each year, including the general posting for all public, private, and technical universities, which is usually announced in August or September.
Additionally, there are postings for teachers in December, and two cohorts of nurses, one starting in April and the other in September.
Boakye argued that the Fourth Estate’s report failed to consider these various postings.
“What they did was that they picked the publication we usually undertake when we are doing the general National Service posting. So for instance in 2018 we announced that we had posted 85,000 people, so they picked that figure,” he stated.
He further explained that the NSA submits a summation of all four types of postings to Parliament.
“We do that for the general posting, the teachers, the nurses one, and the nurses two, and then we submit all of these figures to Parliament,” Boakye noted.
According to him, the Fourth Estate compared the 85,000 figure for general postings to the total sum submitted to Parliament, leading to erroneous conclusions about “ghost names.”
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