NYEP adopts measures to address delayed payments

Management of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) has adopted measures to address the perennial delay in the payment of allowances and the subsequent frustration beneficiaries of the Programme often face.

Mr Abuga Pele, National Coordinator of the Programme in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra on Friday, said in a move to stamp out the challenges of timely payments of beneficiaries, a national task force had been constituted to help to address the problem.

He said the task force, made up of trained interns with accounting and audit backgrounds would form teams, each to be led by a Deputy National Coordinator, to visit each region to carry out on-the-spot verification and mopping up of all beneficiaries’ unpaid allowances.

He said as part of the exercise all district and regional coordinators had been instructed to make it a priority to ensure that it succeeded, saying “Any coordinator who jokes with the exercise stands the chance of losing his or her position.”

Mr Pele explained that the regional coordinators were expected to convene a meeting of all district coordinators at the head quarters, who were to submit all details of unpaid beneficiaries’ allowances.

He said all information received at such meetings would be channelled to the national headquarters for the needed action. The whole exercise is expected to be completed within a week.

Mr Pele said the NYEP was making public announcement for  beneficiaries to take advantage of the exercise.

He also indicated that government had committed itself to ensuring that money was released to the Programme for beneficiaries on time and that undue delays should not be accommodated.

Mr Pele said, “There has also been some improvement in the payment due to the increase in the talk time tax from 20 per cent to 60 per cent and that the major drawback in the payment system had been the delay within the banks, especially the rural ones.

He said beneficiaries in some areas particularly in the north received their payments sometimes very late after payments had been made in Accra.

Mr Pele stressed on the need to also reduce the bottlenecks within the banking system and explained that payments in future would be made directly to each district through the accredited bank to eliminate the long transfer procedure.

He said as part of the exercise, banks holding on to unclaimed allowances and that were supposed to be returned to the NYEP would be retrieved by soliciting the support of the security agencies, ADB head office and the Bank of Ghana.

Mr Pele said these funds run into millions of Ghana cedis but all efforts to retrieve them so far had failed.

He said the NYEP had made tremendous strides since 2009 in terms of the number of beneficiaries recruited, its exit plan, and the introduction of people with disability model, which had gained international recognition thus attracting funding agencies like DANIDA and the World Bank.

Source: GNA