Pay more attention on national volunteer programme - NSS Official

Tamale, July 18, GNA - Mr Williams Zoogah, an official at the National Service Secretariat has called on the government to extend the National Volunteer Programme (NVP) to cover other areas, such as afforestation and community-based development projects. He said this would enhance the country's rapid development and would also reduce the unemployment burden on the state, since some of the youth would always have something to keep them going. Mr Zoogah said this in Tamale on Monday, when he stood in for the National Service Coordinator, Mr Obiri Yeboah at a two-days' stakeholders conference on the NVP and the way forward. The National Service Secretariat Programme and National Volunteer Programme (NSSP/NVP) in collaboration with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) organised the conference to deliberate on the process of volunteer intake with the view to streamline and downsize the process, so as to make it cost effective.

Participants were drawn from the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions and were expected to come out with effective action plan for the year and beyond. Mr Zoogah said, "The country can develop at a faster pace, if much attention was paid on the NVP, because beneficiary are hard working and committed to the programme, they are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the development of the nation".

He said what was needed was for the government to channel more resources including adequate funds for the programme to be sustained and that some of the NVP personnel were more experienced than some National Service personnel and stressed the need for the programme's improvement and sustenance.

He said there were 23,000 National Service personnel nationwide and about 7.2 billion cedis was being spent on them and that some of them were not committed to the service. Mr Zoogah, who is also an accountant at the National Service Secretariat appealed to the government to consider placing the secretariat under the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, so that much attention would be paid to it. Mr Mohammed Amin Adam, the Mayor of Tamale, expressed the government's determination to create more jobs for the youth and that the NVP was so dear to government that, it would do everything possible to ensure its sustenance.

He appealed to National Service Secretariat to take steps to create more awareness on the spirit behind volunteerism and the National Volunteer Programme to ensure that those, who would be recruited, would not be expecting so much from the government. Mr Silas Natomah, Northern Regional Coordinator of the NSS said the volunteerism was high on the secretariat's policy agenda, since it was cost effective means of service-provision. He said though those volunteers were not permanently employed, it would reduce their economic burden and that they were also contributing their quota towards building the nation and called on all to support it. 18 July 06