Accra, Feb. 17, GNA – Trainees of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) on Thursday hit the streets of Accra to demand the payment of unpaid stipends and the swift implementation of processes towards job placement.
The trainees called on the Government to expedite their transition into mainstream public work through the career pathway initiative envisioned to create opportunities for them to create their own jobs through entrepreneurial and skills training for long-term solutions to employment, and cushion others for further academic studies.
The protesting trainees, numbering about 60, caried placards calling on the government to pay their stipends after their initial three-year contract, which ended in October 2021.
Government directed the trainees to remain at post after their contracts ended last year.
Some of the demonstrators told the Ghana News Agency that their stipends were in arrears for four months and that government had paid that of September and October “recently.”
A trainee, who only gave his name as Francis, said most of them were “surviving on loans from friends and family as life has become difficult in the last four months.”
Yaw Antwi, a trainee with the Civic Ghana Module, said they were out demonstrating to hold the Government to its promise of offering them permanent placements in the public service.
King Faisal, another trainee under the Revenue Ghana Module, said he, just like his colleagues, had gained the requisite employability skills required for job opportunities in the public sector and that the government had no excuse of not offering them permanent jobs.
Nana Berima Asamoah, Patron, Coalition of NABCO Trainees, in a signed petition to officials of NABCO said, “the Government’s promise to integrate beneficiaries into permanent mainstream works anchored on the objectives of the scheme has not been fulfilled.”
He appealed to the Government to pay all outstanding arrears of some trainees from 2019 and eleven-months arrears of Health Ghana Nurses.
“We also demand that the remaining three months arrears for all beneficiaries which comprise November, December 2021 and January 2022 must be paid to foster a uniform payment stream of the scheme” the petition said.
The trainees further demanded for the renewal of their terms of reference explicitly stating the duration of posting until permanent arrangements were made to recruit them.
They recommended to the Government to halt any decision to enrol new cohorts and undertake a review of the NABCO Programme with a full-scale research and scout for agencies that would offer technical, vocational and practical internship to future beneficiaries.
That, Nana Berima Asamoah, speaking in an earlier interview with the Ghana News Agency, said would equip potential beneficiaries after three years to meet the demands of the job environment.
They called for the creation of entrepreneurship as a module or revision of other modules that would drive potential beneficiaries into avenues to prepare them to be prospective entrepreneurs for job creation.
Alhaji Baba Mohammed, Accra Regional Coordinator, NABCO, who received the petition on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer of NABCO, Dr Ibrahim Anyars, said a head count of trainees was already underway as part of measures and processes to address their grievances.
He observed that a lot of the trainees had gained employment in the public and private sector but remained on the system, adding that an audit had been initiated to streamline the system and ensure that only those actively working were paid their due.
NABCO was launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, May 1 2018, as a vehicle to deliver 100,000 jobs in seven prioritised modules; Educate Ghana, Heal Ghana, Feed Ghana, Revenue Ghana, Digitise Ghana, Enterprise Ghana, and Civic Ghana.
GNA