The personnel unanimously and vehemently kicked against the system.
As part of efforts to get as many people to use the biometric e-zwich cards which can be used to perform various banking and retail functions, the government has ordered that henceforth all national service personnel should be enrolled onto the e-zwich system.
However, about 900 service personnel in the metropolis strongly disagreed with the government's directive when it was made known to them at an orientation programme organized by the Metropolitan Secretariat of the National Service Scheme.
According to the personnel, the government should have consulted various stakeholders, including the local executives of the various NSP to solicit their views on the matter before issuing out the order.
They argued that apart from the fact that their monthly allowances were sometimes delayed unduly, the process they go through to get their meager allowances were cumbersome, claiming that the introduction of the electronic card would make matters worse.
They noted that they prefer the old method of receiving their allowances through the banks, stating that with the e-zwich card personnel would queue for several hours before receiving their allowances.
They also alleged that with the introduction of the e-zwich, the amount of deduction on their allowances would increase because the various banks would take their bank charges while the operators of e-zwich would also make some deductions.
However, Nana Anima, an official of GhIPSS, who attended the orientation programme, refuted all the allegations leveled by the service personnel on the usage of e-zwich, explaining that the card could be used for cash withdrawals, payment for goods and services, money transfers and payment of bills from any e-zwich point of sale across the country.
She noted that it was not true that with the electronic card, service personnel would queue for several hours before getting their allowances, adding that it would rather help in addressing the delay in receiving their monthly allowances.
Ebenezer Asante, Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Director of the National Service Scheme, explained that national service was all about giving back a little of all the virtues that the state had invested in an individual.
'It is about spending one year of one's entire life time to say thank you to the state, and a demonstration of one's preparedness to contribute positively towards nation building,' he noted.
He called on Ghanaians to guide service personnel to ensure that the allowances are not wasted as part of their civic duties.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Emmanuel Opoku
Quelle/Source: Accra Daily Mail, 23.02.2011
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