“He [President Nana Akufo-Addo shouldn’t worry. 2020 is coming. We voted him in and we will vote him out,”
The statement above is a message coming from a charged group of nurses and health professionals threatening to vote out the New Patriotic Party government in 2020 for its failure to review some terms and conditions governing the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) under the heal Ghana module.
“The reason why we are against this policy is that, this policy is just detrimental to our lives. This policy is something that is not going to help us. This policy has no future for the nurses,” one nurse told an Accra based radio.
She added “We feel like the government has lied to us. The government promised us financial clearance in May; not NaBCo. NaBCo is a stranger to us. It came all of a sudden and we are even shocked I don’t think anybody understands it,”
The nurses, who belong to the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees Association and the National Health Students Association of Ghana, want amendments to be made with immediate effect.
Despite their complaints, the Coordinator of the Nation Builders Corps, Dr. Ibrahim Anyass, has stated in a press release that although there are openings for graduate nurses to be employed under the scheme, application for the jobs is not compulsory.
“Government has put in place a graduate employment scheme called the Nation Builders Corps. The Scheme is an enrichment process to add value to any graduate that seeks to become employable in the future in a permanent fashion. That does not replace the natural processes of recruitment in the public or private sector. So the NaBCo project has nothing to do with stopping of clearances for future recruitment except that it guarantees you security to be able to use your talents to practice, especially those who have hands-on skills like nurses…What we are saying is that it’s not compulsory to get onto the Nation Builders Corps, it doesn’t stop your clearance. You are gaining some kind of integrity in terms of your professional practice by taking advantage of this scheme to practice while waiting for your clearance.”
The NaBCo is a government initiative aimed at addressing graduate unemployment in Ghana. It was launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on May 1, 2018.
By: Joseph Nii Ankrah
- Latest
- Trending
