The Nation Builder’s Corps (NABCO) programme is to pay the monthly stipends of GH¢700 for some 9,235 beneficiaries with effect from this week, the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has assured.
He said the payment of the regular stipends and that of December followed the completion of the resolution of the challenges encountered with processing the stipends for the beneficiaries.
The Minister, however, encouraged another 8,766 who still have outstanding data issues to correct their data as requested of them in messages sent to them to allow them to receive their stipends as soon as possible.
Addressing the press in Koforidua yesterday, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said “It will be recalled that in the past week some beneficiaries have complained of non-receipt of their monthly stipend of GH¢700 even as their colleagues on the same programme had received theirs.”
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the NABCO stipend for 2018 were fully funded in the 2018 budget and payments commenced for some 77,907 beneficiaries.
He, however, said some 18,001 beneficiaries unfortunately did not receive their stipends for various reasons.
He stated that the difficulties encountered called for a halt in further processing of the payroll for the data set to be corrected, with NABCO secretariat sending messages to beneficiaries to correct their data for them to be rekeyed into the system.
“The secretariat informs us that 9,235 of them have now corrected their data and thus will be paid this week. Their December and regular stipends are also programed to be paid immediately afterwards,” he assured.
According to him, some 2,105 persons had been found to be already employed on other government programmes such as Youth Employment Agency (YEA), National Service Secretariat, Forestry Commission payroll, Ministry of Health nursing training institutions or already employed in other sectors would be exited from the programme.
“Additionally, since October 2018, a total of 1,098 persons have also notified the NABCO secretariat of an intention to exit to other employment schemes. These voluntary exits are expected to continue as government continues to recruit into the public sector.
“This will create more vacancies on the NABCO roll and give the secretariat room to onboard persons who are on the waiting list and have not been placed yet,” he stated.
He pointed out that it was for such reason that even after placing the first 100,000 beneficiaries, others were left on a waiting list.
The Minister reiterated that the government had secured $60 million for the implementation of the second phase of the University of Health and Allied Sciences project in Ho in the Volta Region.
From Ama Tekyiwaa Ampadu Agyeman, Koforidua
