The National Service Secretariat (NSS) has denied that it imposed the recently launched insurance program on service personnel.
It said the decision to introduce the insurance package for personnel this year, was based on a proposal by the leadership of the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA).
[contextly_sidebar id=”eXTn2BIXFy41V0t8wUE9jEjlpHOOdGIQ”]The acting Executive Director of the NSS, Ussif Mustapha, in an interview with Citi News said, the newly launched insurance package was an improvement upon what the leaders of NASPA proposed.
“There was a congress in Kumasi, the highest decision making body of NASPA, at the Congress proposed that they have a welfare health insurance package for all service personnel…. I was sitting here in my office on 27th May when I received a resolution from NASPA. I went through thoroughly to ensure that I take the best decision with whatever facilitation I have to do that will favour NASPA.”
“For me, they coming out with what they want and I facilitating to make sure that it is better for service personnel is what I did,” he said.
His explanation comes after some personnel of the scheme criticized the secretariat for ‘imposing’ the insurance program on them.
One of the personnel, Gyamfi Shadrack Gyasi said, “we are against it. They didn’t sit down with us to gather our views. They don’t know whether some personnel have already gotten a private insurance policy. This is a way to steal from us. GH¢ 15 is too much. If they want to help us with an insurance policy, they should contact the government and do that for us, but not take money from the meager money we earn. We are against it. It must be optional,” he said.
The insurance package will see a monthly deduction of GH¢ 15 from their meager allowance of GH¢559.
The program is a partnership between the secretariat, MTN and Glico Life Insurance and was launched earlier this week to cover the over 90,000 personnel.
Benefits of the insurance scheme include free phone calls and text messages among MTN users. Monthly MTN data allocation.
The claims vary from GHc 15,000 in cases of death or incapacitation, and gh3,000 for cases of temporary disability.
As part of the insurance package, National Service personnel are entitled to a GHc 500 loan which is payable within six months.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that management of the National Service Scheme are considering proposals to make the insurance program optional.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana