Employees under the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) are set to embark on a nationwide demonstration over unpaid allowances.
The programme, which currently employs some 99,000 youth, has faced challenges with beneficiaries leaving the policy without notifying their respective offices.
Some of the beneficiaries since their employment in 2018 have been agitating over non-payment of their monthly allowances of Ghc700 which critics attributed to unsustainable funding.
In a communique dated 6 April, the leadership of the beneficiaries under the name ‘Coalition of NABCO trainees nationwide’ called on its members to “tighten” their plans to demonstrate in order to “drum up support over unpaid stipends.”
According to the Coalition, their action is necessitated by the government’s inability to pay them their monthly allowance “per the agreement of the engagement letter signed by all trainees.”
The Coalition further expressed anger over what they say is “inconsistent and fluctuated” manner of payments of Arrears due to trainees, recollecting instances where the Secretariat slashed and partially paid arrears to trainees with others not received a dime since the inception of the programme.
“We want the programme to run smoothly with regular payment and not paying in bits. We go through a lot and cannot endure any longer. A nation builder without money how can we build the nation?” they quizzed.
Meanwhile, the CEO of the programme Dr Ibrahim Anyars has been touting the success of the policy launched on May 1, 2018 and designed to meet the pressing needs of the nation, while providing jobs for the teeming youth who have received tertiary education but are struggling to find jobs partly because of the ban placed on public sector employment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He told host Morning Starr Francis Abban in a recent interview that owing to the success rate being recorded, he has “no doubt in mind that the scheme will justify its existence.”
