COVID-19: All service persons to be paid fully — National Service Scheme

The National Service Scheme (NSS) has explained that all national service persons who have been posted to educational establishments that remain closed because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will be paid their allowances in full until they begin work.

According to the NSS management, a special arrangement would be made to pay the allowances of those service persons even if the managers of their user agencies were not available to process their documents.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday, the Head of Corporate Affairs at the NSS, Mr Armstrong Esaah, also made it clear that the service persons could start their mandatory one-year duties at user agencies to which they had been posted before they completed their registration process.

Novelty

Mr Esaah said unlike previous years when prospective persons had one month to go through the registration process, now service persons needed to start work after their user agencies had endorsed their appointment letters.

“What has been the practice is that when a user agency endorses the forms, the prospective service person has to go to the regional office of the NSS to complete the registration before he or she starts work.

“But now we are saying that once the user agency accepts your appointment, you start service and then go through the registration later,” he said.

He, however, explained that the registration had to be done early enough to pave the way for the processing of documents for allowances to be paid to service persons.

“There is no time limit on when service persons should finish the registration, but in their own interest, they should do it within the month because if they delay, their allowances cannot be paid,” he added.

Postings

The NSS last Monday posted 86,478 graduates who had enrolled for the 2020/2021 national service from accredited tertiary institutions and private registrants.

The figure is an increase on the 77,962 who were posted in the 2019/2020 service year.

A statement signed by the Executive Director of the NSS, Mr Mustapha Ussif, and issued by the scheme said registration and validation of prospective service persons would begin at all centres across the country from Thursday, September 3.

It added that service persons deployed to educational institutions were directed to hold on with their registration and validation until schools officially reopened.

Regional breakdown

Throwing more light on the figure, Mr Esaah said 33,798 service persons had been posted to user agencies in the Greater Accra Region, while the Ashanti Region had 15,135 service persons.

The Northern Region followed with 7,604, with the Eastern, Central and Western regions settling on 6,105; 5,430 and 4,989, respectively.

The Bono, Volta and Upper East regions had 2,787; 2,423 and 1,995, respectively, while Upper West, Western North and Bono East had 1,648; 1,482 and 1,482 service persons, respectively.

The Ahafo Region had 1,051, while the Oti, Savannah and North East regions had 285; 146 and 118, respectively.