Government has announced that a total of 9,235 out of 18,001 beneficiaries of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) whose stipends were halted over outstanding data errors have been cleared to be paid after the errors were corrected.

NABCo is a government initiative to address graduate unemployment with focus on public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, technology, governance, drive revenue mobilization and collection.

Some 100,000 beneficiaries were in 2018 employed for three years but some beneficiaries continue to agitate over non-payment of their monthly allowances of ghc700 which critics attributed to unsustainable funding

But the Information Minister said, NABCo is fully funded rather the delay in payment were due to data errors detected after due diligence. He said for instance, 12,000 of the beneficiaries gave wrong USN number, about 1000 gave wrong e-zwich numbers, while another 1000 were found to be on forestry commission payroll.

Also, 322 were found to be on YEA payroll, 408 on National Service Secretariat payroll, 7 were enrolled on Ministry of Health nursing training program, 1,702 found to have been employed in other sectors, 6 had duplicate e-zwich numbers, 85 required a change in their cards, 7 provided duplicate details, 394 had mismatches of their names between the NABCo system and the e-zwich system and another 50 had duplicate e-zwich numbers.

Addressing the Media in Koforidua Sunday, the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that, about 8,766 beneficiaries cannot be paid because they still have errors on their employment data which have not been corrected despite been notified by NABCo Secretariat.

“The secretariat informs us that 9,235 of them have now corrected their data and thus will be paid this week. Their December and regular stipends are also programmed to be paid immediately afterwards”

He added “another 8,766 still have outstanding data issues and are encouraged to correct their data as requested of them in messages sent to them so they can be paid as soon as possible”

The Information Minister said, the 2,105 beneficiaries detected on other payrolls will be “exited” from the Scheme.

He also said, since October 2018, a total of 1098 have notified NABCo secretariat over their intention to exit to other employment schemes because they have found permanent jobs or new employment.

This, he said will create vacancies for bringing on board applicants on waiting list.

He clarified that, beneficiaries are not bounded to be on the program until the expiration of the three years contract hence can voluntarily exit anytime they wish.