A director of finance at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), Abdulai Suglo, has been taken to a high court in Wa, capital of the Upper West region, for reportedly drawing salaries and allowances from two public universities in Ghana at the same time.
Sources including the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) say he drew Gh¢115,516.62 in salaries and allowances at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) for 19 months as a senior accountant while he also received salaries and allowances at SDD-UBIDS as a director of finance throughout the same period.
A senior member of SDD-UBIDS’ staff, Prof. Yakubu Awudu Sare, initiated the court action against the director of finance after multiple attempts undertaken to retrieve the unearned salaries and allowances from him failed.
The plaintiff (Prof. Sare) is seeking a court order compelling the defendant (Suglo) to refund “all monies wrongfully and unlawfully” paid to him from the public purse.
Genesis of the alleged double salary
While Suglo was working at KNUST as a senior accountant, he took a sabbatical leave to take up a new job as an interim director of finance at SDD-UBIDS.
A sabbatical leave, also known as a sabbatical, is a period away from work granted to an employee for a period longer than a normal leave to invest the time in some personal passions and priorities.
Although he was scheduled to start his sabbatical leave from KNUST on 10th August 2020 and end it on 9th August 2021, he started working at SDD-UBIDS in June, 2020.
And before he landed in Wa from Kumasi, a letter signed by a KNUST assistant registrar, Yvonne Baiden, forewarned him against drawing double salary.
The letter explained in the third paragraph:
The condition of service regarding sabbatical leave is that the university should continue to pay your basic salary. However, based on the external auditors’ recommendation, an employee cannot draw double salary from the consolidated fund.
In view of this, you can either draw your basic salary from the university or the institution you are serving during the sabbatical leave, but not both.
How the ‘double salary’ happened
The following year (2021), Suglo was made a substantive director of finance by the governing council of the SDD-UBIDS.
After his sabbatical leave ended in 2021, he was granted a one-year extension by KNUST upon request. And when the extension ran out, he remained at SDD-UBIDS by applying to KNUST for a secondment (a temporary transfer) and subsequently for a leave of absence.
In 2023, while external auditors were reviewing the financial statements of SDD-UBIDS, they discovered that Suglo had received double salary from both KNUST and SDD-UBIDS at the same time between June 2020 and December 2021.
They found out that he received his full salary and allowance as a director of finance at SDD-UBIDS and also was paid his basic salary and allowances as a senior accountant by KNUST for 19 months. The amount of money he received from KNUST alone during that period was Gh¢115, 516.62.
Auditors’ action and alleged response from director of finance
The external auditors furnished the university’s audit committee with the findings and recorded same on pages 244 and 245 of the 2023 Report of the Auditor-General.
This is what the Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, said on page 245 of the report about the KNUST/SDD-UBIDS scandal:
The state lost an amount of Gh¢115, 516.62 as a result of the double salary and allowances paid to Mr Suglo.
We recommended to management to recover the amount of Gh¢115, 516.62 from Mr Abdulai Suglo and pay same into the Auditor-General’s Recoveries Account at Bank of Ghana, account number 1018331470015.
The report further revealed on page 245 that Suglo proposed to pay the money back in a monthly instalment of Gh¢6,417.59 over a period of 18 months.
On Friday, 22 September 2023, the SDD-UBIDS’s vice-chancellor at the time, Prof. Philip Duku Osei, wrote a letter to Suglo, notifying him that the university’s audit committee had requested that he (Suglo) repay the double salary and allowances as directed by the auditor-general.
The audit committee, according to the letter from the vice-chancellor, also asked Suglo to “ensure that all relevant documentation and records” concerning the double salary and allowances were “made available for audit verification.”
Conflict between vice-chancellor, council chairman
The request from the university’s audit committee did not see the immediate compliance the public had expected.
Many suspected the governing council was backing the director of finance and believed it was the reason he did not comply with the audit committee’s demand.
On Monday, 6 November 2023, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) wrote to the university, requesting the release of two members of the school’s staff to assist in an investigation on the double-salary matter.
The following week— Tuesday, 14 November 2023— the chairman of the governing council, Kweku Y. Painstil, fired off an angry letter to the vice-chancellor over the EOCO letter.
He said the letter indicated that the vice-chancellor (who has now been replaced) had a conversation with the agency concerning the issue.
And he (the chairman) went further in that letter to condemn the vice-chancellor for engaging with the EOCO and granting two officers of the university approval to assist the agency in an investigation on the matter without recourse to him as the council chairman.
Protests and petitions
On Wednesday, 29 November 2023, a former student of the university, Zakaria Aliu Domanangmine, penned a petition wherein he criticised the governing council, the addressee of that petition, for being “quiet” on the matter.
“The relevant laws are very clear on this conduct and that is what is surprising to me that the governing council is still quiet about it up to date,” he said in that 4-page petition.
On Sunday, 13 October 2024, the old students’ association of the university lodged a petition with the governing council, demanding Suglo’s removal from office for being “dishonest” to the state. The petition was copied to the Ministry of Education (MoE) among other key stakeholders.
“This act is undoubtedly hurtful to the university and its reputation,” said the association in the petition jointly signed by the vice-president, Tahiru Taufique Jans-Baka, and the general secretary, Saeed Mohammed Sulley.
“We do not want to become a laughing stock in the midst of serious universities because if the university’s reputation continues to suffer, as it is currently being ridiculed around, we become the victims,” it added.
On Friday, 23 February 2024, Suglo wrote a letter to the audit committee, stating that he preferred the university’s governing council handle the audit findings on the double salary and allowances.
“In view of the fact that this issue is before the university council, I will prefer that the issue be handled at that level to bring it to finality.
“Again, further evidence is to be made available to the auditors on their next visit which in my view will bring finality to the matter,” he said.
Subsequently, he resigned from SDD-UBIDS. He explained in his resignation letter, dated 1st August 2024, that his leave of absence from KNUST had ended and the university had rejected his extension request. But he said he was prepared to remain at SDD-UBIDS, and he did remain, until 6th January 2025, to “ensure a smooth transition.”
Appearance before Public Accounts Committee
On Friday, 16 August 2024, Suglo appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at the Parliament House.
He was not there alone. A newly appointed vice-chancellor of SDD-UBIDS, Prof. Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile, and some other senior members of the university were present, too.
Among the lawmakers on the committee were Kofi Adams, Dominic Nitiwul, Samuel Nartey George, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed and Sampson Tangombu Chiragia.
During the PAC sitting, Suglo confirmed in front of live cameras that he received double salary from the two universities.
But he said he did so because SDD-UBIDS failed to honour some terms and conditions of employment to which senior members of the university, including him, were entitled.
He also described as false the claim made on page 245 of the 2023 Report of the Auditor-General that he proposed to repay the double salary in a monthly instalment of Gh¢6,417.59 over a period of 18 months.
The committee, chaired by James Klutse Avedzi, affirmed that it was unlawful for any employee in Ghana to draw double salary from the consolidated fund or the public purse and under no circumstances should any worker do so.
The committee, therefore, concluded that Suglo’s action was unacceptable and directed that he refund to the state only the basic salary he drew from SDD-UBIDS throughout the period. The committee gave him one month to comply with the directive.
Petition to ICAG
On Monday, 9 September 2024, Prof. Sare (the plaintiff mentioned earlier) lodged a 10-page petition with the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG) against Suglo in relation to the receipt of double salary.
In response, Suglo wrote to ICAG on Wednesday, 9 October 2024, stating his readiness to “cooperate fully” in assisting the institute to resolve in a “transparent and professional manner” the concerns raised against him.
He exited SDD-UBIDS in January, 2025, as he had indicated in his resignation letter in August, 2024. Media Without Borders learns the KNUST management moved him to the university’s remote campus at Obuasi, Ashanti Region, upon his return from the leave of absence.
Meanwhile, the high court in Wa is scheduled to continue its hearing of the matter on Tuesday, 29 April 2025.
There is more news ahead on some happenings at the university.
You may click the video below to watch the Public Accounts Committee’s sitting on the SDD-UBIDS double-salary matter, starting from 1 hour 13 minutes into the clip:
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
