National Service personnel posted to educational institutions will continue to receive payment of their allowances despite the partial closure of schools across the country, the National Service Secretariat has reassured.

Earlier in August, they affirmed that personnel deployed to educational institutions will receive their due allowance.

This was in expectation that schools will be allowed to fully reopen later in the year.

Personnel who were posted to tertiary institutions grew worried over the Secretariat’s assurance of paying their allowances after President Akufo-Addo announced January as the reopening date for universities.

This worry grew the more as some of these personnel had not received their allowances for September.

But NSS Communications Director, Armstrong Essah, in an interview on Campus Exclusive, reiterated the Scheme’s commitment to paying the full allowances of all such personnel until January 2021 when they officially begin work.

“If your user agency is an educational institution, what it means is that you will effectively start your national service in January. We know we are not living in normal times and it is not the making of the service personnel for the educational institution to be shut down and so what the government and the Agency have decided is that we will still have to pay all the national service personnel deployed to the educational institutions. They will be paid from September just like their colleagues who are currently working,” he stated

He said that just as they paid service personnel during the period when they were asked to stay home over the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, so will the Secretariat do as their user agencies were still yet to be allowed to reopen.

“If you recall, when COVID-19 broke, one of the measures the president took was to shut down schools. What happened was that our NSPs who were posted to all those schools had to come home, and if you remember, we had to continue to pay them until they exited the service. The current batch, all those posted to the educational institutions, should not be confused at all because we are going to pay them” he reassured.

Monthly Assessment Forms

On the issue of how the affected service personnel would receive endorsement for their monthly assessment forms which will in turn aid in receiving their allowances, Mr Essah said that the Scheme had made special arrangements for the assessment forms to be submitted to the district and regional offices without any endorsement from the user agencies.

“The Executive Director has given a directive to the regional directors to accept monthly assessment forms from the NSPs. The normal process is that you are supposed to print the monthly assessment form and it has to be endorsed by the management of the user agency where you are serving but in this particular case where schools have been shut down, management has made a special concession for the NSPs posted to the educational institutions. So in this case, they will submit their assessment forms directly to the regional directors of National Service and they will endorse the forms for them and then they will go through the normal process of validation and they will be paid.”

For the avoidance of doubt, this only applies to personnel whose user agencies are educational institutions that are to remain closed till January 2021 as directed by the President.

Update on payment of allowances

Speaking further, the NSS Communication Director assured service personnel who are yet to receive any payment of the allowances since September that, plans have far advanced and that soon the monies will be disbursed.

“From the interactions I have had with the regional directors, some of them[NSPs] have started submitting their forms so plans are far advanced and very soon I am sure they will start receiving the monies. Payment of allowances is based on the submission of the assessment forms for I would like to encourage NSPs to be so disciplined in terms of the submission of the assessment forms.”