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 27^th 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

The post NASPA requested for insurance package – NSS Boss appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Some 205 recruits whose appointments were terminated by the Secretariat have threatened to seek redress in court over the matter.

[contextly_sidebar id=”owq98x4cXG7qt0CGBqoXZrNzgWK2bx2E”]According to them, the decision to revoke their appointment was in bad fate and not in accordance with law as they were duly employed by the immediate past administration.

The Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Alhaji Ussif Mustapha told Citi News in an interview that the secretariat did no wrong in terminating the appointments of the new recruits.

He said his outfit is ready to argue out its case should the affected persons drag it before the law court.

“We have a legal department at the NSS and we are ready for any court battle because we know we took the decision in good fate and we are right. The recruitments were done illegal,” he said.

The National Service Scheme on Wednesday [February 8. 2017] issued a statement announcing the revocation of their appointments.

The statement said, “the management of the National Service Scheme (NSS), has on the advice of the Minister of Education, withdrawn the National Service staff recruitment which was done in December 2016 with immediate effect.”

It added that, “This decision is informed by a thorough consideration of violations of due process prior to recruitment. These included petitions to the Public Services Commission (PSC) against the recruitment process upon which the PSC in a letter dated 16th November, 2016, advised the former Ag. Executive Director to halt the recruitment process until the matter was properly resolved. This was however ignored and the appointment letters were issued to some persons on 15th December, 2016.”

It also urged the affected persons to look forward to another opportunity when it conducts a proper staff recruitment.

But the immediate past Executive director of the NSS, Dr Michael Kpessah Whyte who said the decision was wrong, urged the persons affected to go to court.

In an interview on Eyewitness News last week [Wednesday], he said, “as far as I am concerned, during our time, we followed due process to the letter and the documents are there and the new executive director and his team need to ask for them. They should go into correspondences and they should ask for all the correspondence, otherwise, I will advise the new recruits, who have been asked to stay home that if the decision is not reversed, they should take it to court, because the truth is on their side.”

A spokesperson for the sacked recruits, Edwin Afetsi, in a subsequent interview with Citi News said, they will take the matter up in court since they feel unduly targeted and punished for no reason.

“We have reviewed the situation decided that we will pursue the matter in court because we realise that we have done nothing wrong and the decision taken was not based on any proper ground so we will pursue the matter in court. We have spoken to our lawyers and hopefully next week the case may be in court. We want that illegal decision to be revoked. They should revoke their own letter that is trying to revoke our legal appointment.” he said.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

The post We’re ready to battle sacked staff in court – NSS appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

A statement from the scheme signed by newly appointed Executive Director, Ussif Mustapha, said the recruitment procedure was not properly adhered to.

[contextly_sidebar id=”pJhLcQKCfVDCl4bXwRcR7GmDWcSo7gy7″]The statement said, “the management of the National Service Scheme (NSS), has on the advice of the Minister of Education, withdrawn the National Service staff recruitment which was done in December 2016 with immediate effect.”

It added that, “This decision is informed by a thorough consideration of violations of due process prior to recruitment.”

About 205 persons have been affected by this decision.

According to the statement, the Public Services Commission (PSC) had earlier warned the former NSS boss, Michael Kpessah-Whyte to halt the recruitment process bUT he [Kpessah-Whyte] ignored it.

“These included petitions to the Public Services Commission (PSC) against the recruitment process upon which the PSC in a letter dated 16^th November, 2016, advised the former Ag. Executive Director to halt the recruitment process until the matter was properly resolved. This was however ignored and the appointment letters were issued to some persons on 15^th December, 2016.”

The Scheme further urged persons who have been affected by the development, to look forward to another opportunity when it conducts a proper staff recruitment.

Gov’t increases NSS allowance by 60%

The NDC administration at the last minute, also approved an increase in the allowance for service personnel, which was to commence in January 2017, but that is yet to be fully implemented.

Termination of ‘last minute’ jobs, contracts likely – Osafo-Maafo 

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, during his vetting stated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, may terminate last-minute employments and contracts undertaken by the former National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

The last minute contracts and appointments were a point of contention between both sides of the transition team, following the NPP’s election victory.

The NPP side of the transition team subsequently said it reserved the right to review all such contentious appointments and decisions.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

The post NSS cancels ‘last-minute NDC recruitments’ appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.