Some National Service Personnel within the Central Region have reacted to the assertion made by the Central Regional Director for the National Service Secretariat (NSS), Mr. Alex Opoku Mensah, who attributed the delay in NSS payment to Personnel’s late form submission.
The personnel refuted this claim by the director saying the problem is rather from the secretariat.
While most service personnel have confirmed receiving their April allowances, they expressed concerns about the financial hardships they faced during the interim period between payments.
Emphasizing the severe impact of the situation, some indicated facing dire financial constraints, being heavily indebted, and struggling to make ends meet.
In an interview with ATLFMNEWS, they expressed that inconsistent payment makes saving money almost impossible.
One said “Yes, I’ve received my April allowance. Sometimes I get a lump sum of three months’ payment; the next time I get another payment, it’s three months later. It’s affecting how I save. It’s not good.”
Another stressed saying “This has affected some of us to the extent that we’re not even able to afford lunch at work and most of us depend on this allowance as our livelihood and it’s very frustrating to work hard and not be paid on time.”
“Right now, the only way you are surviving is if your parents are subsidising some of the costs for you,” continued another.
Mr. Alex Opoku Mensah, the Central Regional Director for NSS acknowledged that the multi-step approval process in processing and disbursing allowance payments from the district level to the national headquarters contributes partly to the delay in paying NSS personnel.
According to him, the process begins with personnel submitting their monthly forms by the 15th of every month. These forms are then uploaded
In an interview with ATL FM NEWS, he said the secretariat is not intentionally delaying payments.
“We say that by the 15th to 20th of every month, personnel are supposed to present their monthly forms, and by 20th, the district manager should have uploaded them. It then goes to the various regional offices. Then to the accountant who also forwards to the regional directors.
“And the regional directors have been given a time frame to work on it. When it goes to the head office, it also goes through five offices; the usage office, the audit office, the accountant, and then to the executive director. So, you could see the bureaucracy of how these forms are uploaded and worked on.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Mensah stressed that the primary cause of the delay is the service personnel’s lack of timely form submission.
According to him, this delay in form submission poses a challenge to the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS) of the Bank of Ghana in paying the outstanding April and May allowances.
“We owe them May and April but the Bank of Ghana, GhIPSS department were having challenges because they were telling us that quite a good number of them, for instance in Cape Coast metropolitan, if the number is 100, and only 40 people have presented their forms within the stipulated time, GhIPSS advised that if we pay this 40% to the lateness of the 60% that one will bring a lot of this… So, they instructed us to work on the backlog.
So, the problem of delay, we can even say that it comes from most of them not succumbing to as we have told them to bring their forms on time. So, we appreciate it’s April, May and all things being equal, all those backlogs have been worked on.”
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Source: Angelina Riley Hayford/ATLFMNEWS
