The national service personnel association: mirage or reality?

National service is a core part of the Ghanaian world of work which was established by an act of parliament (Act 426) in 1980 to mobilize Ghanaian graduates who had finished their courses in various tertiary institutions, to serve the nation in the spirit of patriotism, while enabling the personnel to amass some practical working experience for themselves before they zoom into the real world of work. This policy by the then government, has been running ever since then with graduates looking forward every year with enthusiasm, to doing their national service upon completion of school. Like any organized group of people with a commen interest, the 1987 batch of national service personnel thought it wise to establish an umbrella association to see to the welfare needs of service personnel nationwide and indeed they succeeded. Unfortunately however, the association collapsed somewhere in 1999 due to alleged embezzlement of funds by then executives at the national level (I stand to be corrected). Fast forward to 2009, it was revived under the leadership of Mr. Vincent Kuagbenu who run the National Service Scheme until 2013 when he was asked to proceed on leave.

Now to the substantive issue, it must be noted that the purpose for which a group sets up an association is often to form a formidable front to pursue its course. However, current developments within the association seem to suggest that, authorities of the National Service Scheme are perhaps, not too happy with the existence of the National Service Personnel Association. In my personal opinion, there appears to be deliberate attempt by authorities to stifle the progress of the association, clip its wings and to render it grossly ineffective, which would eventually lead to it being quashed as was done in 1999. This is exactly where I have a problem.

We as National Service Personnel within this country are the very people who would mature someday in the future not too distant from now, to take up various positions at various levels of society and in essence, run the country. Now with what is currently going on, where NASPA and its executives are barely supported in anything nor given due recognition to be able to realize their collective goals, I wonder what kind of leaders we are hoping to churn out in a few years to come. What sort of leadership experience do we expect these crop of future leaders to have when we are making all efforts to frustrate efforts by the Association? You see, One major characteristic of a good leader I believe, is to be able to see to the general interests of his or her followers by being assertive enough to push forward their concerns to the appropriate quarters, while rallying them behind himself or herself, to achieve set goals. Never in my entire life, have I come across any institution that is so allergic to opposition as the current National Service Scheme. Nothing they do is allowed to be challenged by anybody, and yet some of these same people are running for various political offices in this country where we practice democracy and everybody is or at least is supposed to be entitled to an opinion.

Take a look at an association like the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), which is umbrella body tasked to see to the welfare of students across the country. There have been countless times when the Ghana education service and the Education Ministry have had opinion differences with the leadership of NUGS. Sometime in 2015, my good friend Mr. Prosper Dzitse the then NUGS president, led his team to fight the government about its decision to make tertiary students pay their own utility bills. What happened? The Ministry of Education through Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa sat with the leadership of NUGS and deliberated on the matter amicably. Though I do not have concrete information as to what came out of that meeting, there was at least a desire by the ministry of education, to respect the existence of the union and its leadership, and that is why they dialogued with them. But as much as I hate to admit it, this cannot happen with NASPA and authorities of the National Service Scheme. Till date, contributions that were made by service personnel as welfare dues while registering for the National Service last year have still not been released to the various districts for proposed projects to be undertaken. I know some people may argue that there are still some districts and regions that are yet to hold NASPA elections and that is why the funds have not been released. Like seriously? We have just about four months to end the 2015/2016 service year and welfare funds have still not been disbursed yet. Could we not have fixed a deadline for all districts and regions to have had elections? The problem really is that, probably by the time these funds are released for the Association to be able to run at all levels, service year would probably have been over and personnel would have returned to their respective homes. What then do you expect leadership of NASPA to do? Most people would just misapply the money and then later on we brand them as corrupt? Well why would they not be corrupt when the grounds have been made so fertile for them? that is the more reason the funds should be released now that the personnel are still at post, so they can benefit from their contributions and to hold their leaders accountable as well.

Every service person is this country is eagerly looking forward to waking up one morning to news that the service allowance has been increased. In fact even if it is increased by one cedi, God only knows the amount of joy that would fill our hearts. But of course, the big men who are in charge do not want us to be strong enough to be able to pursue agenda like this one, which is probably not in their interests. So what do they do? They clip our wings. We cannot organize press conferences, we cannot buy radio airtime to come out public on the issues and we definitely cannot afford to buy space in any of the dailies because almost every NASPA account across the country is virtually empty. This is not fair to us at all. The major stakeholders of the scheme sit in the comfort of their offices and post us across the country to places some of us never even heard of, but for national service. We are not complaining. But what hurts and is unfair to all national service personnel is that, we have an association through which we could network and socialize so that doing national service can become more satisfying and yet, the association is in no state to be able to hold programmes and undertake activities that would see to the welfare of the personnel.

However, I do not land the entire chunk of the blame at the doorstep of the national service scheme, as the government is also partly to blame. Go round the various district national service offices across the country and sometimes, you feel like crying or even throwing up. Everything is just a mess. From leaking roofs, to bad furniture, to printers without toners and paper, I mean just name it all. Personnel who are at post and are working die and they are not even done the last honor of having their regional and district directors attend their funerals. All of these happen because government has not released impress to the various offices in a long time. This is definitely not the way to go. How do you post somewhere from say, Volta region to upper west region and if they pass away unfortunately, their families have to bear the entire cost involved. Meanwhile they were rendering service to the nation.

Things have certainly got to change. I personally as an active member of the national service personnel association believe that opinion leaders and stakeholders of the national service scheme should begin to have a rethink about their actions. There are too many deliberate attempts to suppress the personnel association and that is not good for a country that boasts of being a beacon of African democracy. We need to begin to appreciate the tremendous role that NASPA plays or could play in the life of every service person, if only the structures were allowed to be in full operation. We await some positive changes from our leaders of the scheme, while us on our part, continue to be of good service to our nation.

Long live NASPA, Long live Ghana.

NASPA…..ready to serve!

NASPA…..ready to serve!!

NASPA…... Allawa ooooo Allawa!

By:

Nathan Qarboo Tetteh

(NASPA President, Berekum Municipal)

+233244903748

Email: gracyboonathan@gmail.com