NYEP STAFF TO STRIKE

*Over unpaid salaries  

Reports reaching Today indicate that workers employed under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) are threatening to lay down their tools if the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government does not intervene and ensure that their backlog of salaries are paid them.

The threat, Today understands, stems from the continuous refusal of NYEP regional and district coordinators to impress upon the National Youth Employment Authority to pay workers their salary arrears.

Checks at various districts revealed that personnel of the Authority have gone several months without pay, thus leading many to consider the option of quitting their jobs.

“Our families are disintegrating due to the lack of money in the house,” an NYEP staff who lamented that his wife was threatening to divorce him told Today on condition of anonymity.

At the Asante Akim North District of the Ashanti Region, Today was reliably informed that personnel engaged under the health module of the NYEP have gone nine months without pay and complaints lodged with the coordinators to that effect have fallen on deaf ears.

This development, Today gathered, has brought untold hardships on the workers as many are threatening of quitting the job if nothing is done to salvage the situation.

“We have gone nine months without pay…and some of us are considering the option of quitting because it is better to stay home than to work for months without pay,” an aggrieved staff of NYEP told this reporter.

Most of the workers who have to shuttle between their place of abode and the hospitals within the district have had cause to absent themselves from work due to the lack of money to board transport to the villages.

This, some doctors at the various hospitals said, affects the delivery of healthcare in the towns and villages.

“…Their absence is very worrisome, when they come to work, they help to complement the efforts of the few nurses available here: therefore we want to implore the government to do something about their pay,” Kwasi Agyei, a doctor at one of the hospitals in the district, advised.

The workers also confirmed to this paper that when they complained to the NYEP coordinator in charge of the Asante Akim North District, Abdul Moumin, a.k.a Barbs, he only promised to pay them after a supposed trip to Accra and when he finishes processing their documents.

“Any time we call on him, he tells us he is processing documents. The last time he travelled to Accra with the assurance that when he comes back, he would pay us but he did not say anything when he returned,” another staff told Today.

Barbs in an interview with this paper confirmed the story but said they only owed seven months instead of the alleged nine months, and “even with that we have directed the payment to Better Ghana Agenda,” a management body under Zoomlion Ghana Ltd.

The severity of the hardship led to a decision to stage a demonstration at the district council office at Konongo to register their displeasure but sources said the processes for the gathering could not materialise.

Further checks revealed that NYEP personnel throughout the country are suffering the same fate as some have not being paid for a year now.

STORY: KWAKU NTI