The Central Regional Director for the National Service Secretariat (NSS), Mr. Alex Opoku Mensah, has attributed the delayed payments of National Service allowances to the NSS personnel themselves, citing their failure to submit forms on time.
Speaking on the Atlantic Wave on Thursday, Mr. Mensah emphasized that the secretariat is not intentionally delaying payments.
However, he 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.
“We say that by 15th to 20th of every month, personnel are supposed to present their monthly forms, and by 20th, the district manager should have uploaded. 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 lack of timely form submission by the service personnel.
According to him, this delay in form submission poses challenges 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.”
While acknowledging that the challenges remain, he assured that payments for April 2024 allowances are expected to be completed by Friday, July 5, 2024, while May 2024 allowances will be paid early part of next week.
Additionally, he said June and July will be paid by 15th of July and August, 2024 respectively emphasizing “that is how the structural payment system is.”
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