The Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) Trainees Association of Ghana has expressed disappointment over the government’s inability to pay their monthly stipends.
The disgruntled personnel said they had been plunged into a point of no hope as the government has turned deaf ears to their pressing issue.
They said the non-payment of their salary for seven months makes life unbearable for them.
“The situation on the ground is not reflective of the promise made to invest in the youth through job creation. We are asking the government this simple question: although we have been told of the soon-to-come arrears/permanent arrangement, until when? They quizzed.
According to the NABCO trainees, they may die out of hunger before the economy bounces back for their payment to be made.
“The ultimate goal of reducing graduate unemployment cannot be materialised if these beneficiaries who were directed to remain at post, pending permanency arrangements are not absorbed into the mainstream work.
“There have been a series of calls on the government in lieu of the permanent employment arrangement but to no avail. The current situation is disturbing beyond measure, coupled with almost seven months of arrears,” the President of the Association, Dennis Opoku Katakyie, disclosed in a statement dated May 23, 2022.
In an earlier interview sometime in October 2019, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the programme, Dr Ibrahim Anyass, said the non-payment of allowances that have plagued the implementation of the Nations Builders Corps (NABCO) are just natural mechanical hitches.
Dr. Anyass explained that circumstances such as incomplete records on the part of some recruits genuinely hindered the payment process.
“One will be naive to think that you can have a new creation such as the Nation Builders Corps on such scale and extension and not have issues or challenges. For us, we just see this as natural to the implementation of the program. Some circumstances present themselves for people to relocate.
“These issues are natural because this is a human institution, and so people had to move, and they find that they were stuck with the data. Those were just mere implementation stage issues, but as we speak, most of those issues have been resolved,” he said.
Despite these setbacks, Dr Anyass assured that all allowances due to trainees are being paid, but the latest statement by the trainees suggests that the problem persists.
About NABCo
The Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) programme is a government initiative implemented to address the growing phenomenon of graduate unemployment.
The focus is to solve public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, technology, governance, and driving revenue mobilisation and collection.
The objectives of the programme are to:
• Provide temporary employment to unemployed graduates
• Improve skills and employability for the transition from program to permanent employment
• Improve public service delivery
• Improve on government revenue mobilisation
• To provide needed infrastructure to improve access to basic public services
Under the programme, graduates are expected to be trained, equipped with the necessary work tools, and deployed around the country to engage in the following programmes:
• Educate Ghana
• Heal Ghana
• Feed Ghana
• Revenue Ghana
• Digitise Ghana
• Civic Ghana
• Enterprise Ghana