The National Service Secretariat has blamed the Upper East Regional Audit Service for the delay in paying allowance due National Service Personnel in the region.
Personnel of the service in the upper east region have raised concerns over delays in payment of their monthly allowance for September and October. President of the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA) for Talensi district Asaah Daniel said the delay in paying the allowance has taken a toll on the very survival of service personnel in the region.
“We are frustrated and in hard times. We are finding it difficult to fend for ourselves. We have people who have families to take care of. Though the three hundred and fifty Ghana cedis is nothing, but with the current economic condition, it is so bad for us to survive without anything. By Monday or Tuesday the money should hit our accounts because we are hungry” he told Azongo Albert
In a response, Public Relations Officer of the National Service Scheme Ambrose Ntuah Junior explained that the delays in paying the service personnel is as a result of delay in the submission of payment vouchers by the upper east regional audit service.
According to him, upper east region is the only region that has not been paid and this is because the service is yet to receive payment vouchers which have been submitted by the regional office of the scheme to the audit service for auditing.
Mr. Ntuah said “For the first two months, personnel go through what we call authentication and validation because they are fresh. These are part of reforms the scheme has taken as part of the restructuring of the service to make sure we don’t go through the bad situation we had. Unfortunately the upper east region is the only region that has not been paid for September. Reason being that all the monthly forms that were collected were used to prepare payment vouchers for the month of September and sent to external auditors in Bolga. As at yesterday, the PV’s had not left the auditor’s office. These things would have to be audited and passed before we can pay. The payments have stalled because the PV’s are locked up with the external auditors in Bolgatanga.”
He added that the NSS cannot pay if the PV’s are not released by the audit service in Bolgatanga. The regional office of the NSS has been therefore asked to formally request for the PV’s to be released before any payment can be made.
He assured that National Service Personnel in the region will have their monies hit their accounts barely two days after the PV’s are received from the external auditors in Bolgatanga.
Efforts by A1 Radio to get response from the audit service in Bolgatanga proved futile.
By: Albert Azongo | A1RADIOONLINE.com | GHANA
