NaBCo detects fraud-3,807 beneficiaries enrol on other programmes

The Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) has detected that 3,807 beneficiaries of the programme have concurrently enrolled onto other government-supported youth employment initiatives in an attempt to receive double pay.

Out of the number, 1,702 have been identified to be people who are already gainfully employed.

They form part of 18,001 beneficiaries who have various queries to answer, for which the payment of their stipends has been halted.

Among those with concurrent enrolment, the NaBCo Secretariat found out that 1,368 were on the payroll of the Forestry Commission, 408 on extended National Service, 322 on the Youth Employment Agency module, with seven nurses on the Ministry of Health training institutions allowance.

Other issues

The Chief Executive Officer of NaBCo, Dr Ibrahim Anyars, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that 12,564 trainees used wrong e-zwich numbers, 394 names mismatched (that is, the names in the NaBCo system and the e-zwich number were different), 50 beneficiaries used the same e-zwich number and seven of the names appeared on the NaBCo payroll more than once.

Statistics available to the Daily Graphic indicate that as of January 10, 2019, the NaBCo Secretariat had cleared 9,235 of the trainees with issues about the payment of their November stipends, while 8,766 were still under investigation for validation and payment.

He explained that payment under the scheme was not as straightforward as many would think, explaining that because it was a major government programme, the managers had to put in place a robust system to deal with issues relating to payments.

Dr Anyars said when the Ministry of Finance released GH¢67.13 million for the first payment of stipends to beneficiaries, 95,908 trainees had confirmed their acceptance onto the scheme and qualified for the allowance of GH¢700 each.

Validation

Beneficiaries are to be paid through the e-zwich system of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS).

Since the e-zwich payment mode relied on biometrics, it helped the programme to check beneficiaries who were already enrolled onto other government programmes, he explained.

He said because of the verification and validation system, only 60,100 of them were paid immediately and a subsequent 17,807 were later validated and paid on December 14, 2018.

Dr Ibrahim noted that some of the challenges surrounding payments to the trainees concerned wrong data entry during the registration processes.

“It is because of these challenges that we want to clean the list before we pay,” he said.

He said January 2019 stipends would be paid tomorrow, February 28, 2019, noting that those for December 2018 had been paid.

He added that if anyone had not been paid for November and December 2018, they must have issues to resolve.

The Ministry of Finance released GH¢138.6 million for the payment of December 2018 and January 2019 stipends for 99,000 trainees (GH¢69.3 million for each month).

He, therefore, appealed to such persons to visit the website of NaBCo to resolve their challenges electronically.

Assumption of duty

Dr Anyars said all posted and placed trainees had been asked to fill the Assumption of Duty form, which would require that they provided the details again.

He said 19,000 were yet to be placed but explained that they had been earmarked for some major government projects, such as the digitisation of the Lands Commission and the Births and Deaths Registry.

He explained that some of the trainees posted under the Enterprise Ghana and the Heal Ghana modules were yet to be verified by the professional bodies before they were placed.

Mobile App

Beyond paying the beneficiaries through e-zwich, Dr Anyars said a location-based mobile app had also been developed for the trainees to log in and log out each time they reported for duty and closed from work.

The system, he said, would also be endorsed by their supervisors to authenticate their presence at post, as well as the completion of time sheets.

Labour market

He said the scheme was a work and learning programme, with the view to preparing graduates for the labour market.

He said the placement was only one component of the NaBCo programme, saying that the institution would launch its online portal to help the trainees learn on the job.

According to him, the entire application process, through interviews and placement, was part of the learning process to enhance the employability of the graduates after completing the programme.