Gifty Oware-Mensah, Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), has rebuffed claims by certain national service personnel that the Scheme owes them three months allowance.
She told JoyNews on The Pulse on Wednesday that the Service had paid 67,000 people as of April 2022, and that only those who had not filed their monthly assessment forms had yet to be paid.
“National service is not owing our national service personnel any three months. We have paid April and then we are in the month of May on our national service calendar and this month of May is supposed to end on the 15th of June. So as you and I are speaking, we are not owing national service personnel. Rather, there are pockets of people who have not submitted their monthly assessment forms, some have not put their right e-zwich numbers up and some have not even worked for the time they are asking us to pay them.
“These are few people we are owing and these do not even add up to thousand. We have paid 67,000 NSPs as at April and there is no way we are owing any national service personnel,” she explained.
Gifty Oware-Mensah guaranteed that the NSS will speed payment for personnel who failed to complete their monthly evaluation forms on time.
“Many of them have not submitted their monthly assessment or some of them have delayed in submission and so, after we pay the general one, yes there are few payments that we have to make and we do those payments before we pay our next in line. So yes, we are going to make sure we pay them and if you did not work for any month, you are not going to be paid,” she added.
On Monday, a group calling themselves the Coalition of Suffering National Service Personnel took to the streets of Accra to protest their unpaid stipend.
The group, dressed in red and holding banners, demanded that their three months’ arrears be paid.
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They claim that the delay in payment of their stipend is creating financial hardship as a result of recent price increases in products and services.
Despite the limited turnout, the organizers were steadfast in their goal and demand.
The protest, which began at the Obra sport in Accra, finished at Parliament House, where a petition was submitted to Speaker Alban Bagbin.
Weachea Awaregya, the Group’s President, told JoyNews that NSS personnel require money to survive.
He also requested that the NSS allowance be evaluated in light of the country’s present economic woes.
“We are suffering. We are living in a time when everything is difficult. Salaried workers are suffering, everybody is currently suffering and we are living on a national service allowance of 559 and that is not enough.
“Aside from the fact that the money is small, it is not being paid on time,” he stated.
SOURCE: myjoyonline
