Immediate past National Service Authority heads Mustapha Ussif and Osei Asibey Antwi, have strongly rejected allegations of wrongdoing by the Fourth Estate.

The Fourth Estate, has accused the National Service Authority of padding up service personnel, who are paid monthly allowance for no service rendered.

But in a joint statement signed by the two immediate past top directors of the service under the erstwhile government, the two vehimently reject the Fourth Estate investigative report, describing it as half baked and malicious.

The Fourth Estate alleged that the number of personnel the National Service Authority submitted for payment was more than the list the authority submitted to Parliament. However, in its statement, the authority explained that the difference is due postings the authority usually makes after the normal postings, through a special arrangement with the Nursing and Teachers Council for teacher and nursing trainees.

"It must be noted, that in addition to the general enrolment cycle by the Authority, the NSA in partnership with the Nursing and Midwifery Council runs an enrolment cycle for nurses with the same being done for teachers in partnership with the Teachers Council. The shortfalls in the figures are therefore accounted for from these other enrolment cycles. The claim by the Fourth Estate is therefore without any basis, which fact would have been apparent to them had they exercised any diligence in their purported investigations."

After explaining how the National Service posting system works and payments made in collaboration with different institutions, the statement then slammed the Fourth Estate for hastily publishing a misleading verdict without doing a thorough work of cross checking from GhIPSS how much was actually paid after the authority's own system flagged undeserved names.

The statement said It is "shocking, that considering the standing of the Fourth Estate as a media outlet, they would rely on these entry data without ascertaining from GhiPPS (the paying entity), the actual number of personnel paid per year and whether any of these persons with such inconsistent information actually received allowances from the NSA" the satament said.

"This betrays the malicious intent of the purported investigation by the Fourth Estate, as merely calculated to hurriedly publish a sensational story to smear former officers, rather than diligently establish the facts as expected of a decent media house."

The two emphasised their commitment to transparency by highlighting the robust systems they built at the authority to help curb fraud.

"Throughout our tenure, we committed to implementing robust enrolment and verification mechanisms to reduce the occurrences of unscrupulous attempts to circumvent the system. One of such important systems was the development of a common portal and the generation of unique access codes to institutions for the submission of their enrolment data in order to reduce the likelihood of manipulation at the entry point."

" The publication by the Fourth Estate must therefore be treated with the contempt it deserves as it is a manifest example of how the misapprehension of data and institutional processes may result in conclusions that misinform and mislead the general public.

While urging the media to stay true to their creed and be thorough in their work, to avoid publishing "sensational stories that malign individuals without basis," it also welcomed the call for further investigations by President Mahama.

"We welcome the directive by President Mahama for an investigation,  as we are certain the investigation will reveal that the true state of affairs on the matters published are contrary to the contrived allegations by the Fourth Estate."

Below is the full statement: