Service personnel urged to mould their lives through Scheme

Saltpond (C/R), Feb. 18, GNA - The Mfantseman District Chief Executive, Mr Robert Quainoo-Arthur has advised personnel of the National Service Scheme (NSS) to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the scheme to lay a solid foundation for their future. He said those personnel who showed lackadaisical attitude towards the scheme might find it difficult to change when they were placed in responsible positions.

Mr Quainoo-Arthur said the scheme was designed to make the service personnel to come face-to-face with realities they were expected to meet in life and to prepare them for their future roles in nation building and urged them not to regard it as a punishment. He gave the advice at an orientation seminar for the NSS personnel and personnel of the Voluntary Service (VS) who had been posted to the District this year.

The DCE reminded them that their service was a call to mastermind a change for improved conditions in the rural areas where the majority of people who contributed to their education lived.

"You should exhibit a high sense of responsibility in the discharge of your duties for the people to see you as role models", he stated. Nana Ataapim Kweenu VIII, Presiding Member of the Mfantseman District Assembly, advised the personnel to live in peace with the people in the communities they served.

"Do not regard them as people who do not know anything so you could lord it over them", he cautioned and added "let them see you as part of the community so that they can also offer you the necessary support".

Nana Kweenu who is also the chief of Woraba, near Cape Coast and Mankrado of Nkusukum Traditional Area, advised the personnel to form subject groups to enable them to share ideas anytime the need arose. Mr Franklin K Aidoo, an Assistant Director at the District Directorate of Education took the participants through the rules and regulations in the Ghana Education Service (GES) and cautioned them to be mindful about their dressing.

Mr Godfrey Gyabi Arthur, Manager of the District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme, urged the personnel to encourage people in their communities to register with the Scheme by educating them on its benefits.

Mr Alfa Atia Alpha, District Director for the National Service Secretariat, said 140 service personnel, made up of 39 from the NSS and 91 from the VS including retired teachers would work in the District. He said 75 per cent of the personnel were engaged in teaching. Mr Alpha said a welfare scheme had been established and an account opened at the Ghana Commercial Bank as a means of solving the usual delays in the payment of allowances to personnel.

He appealed to service user agencies and the District Assembly to help solve accommodation problems and the irregular payment of allowances problems facing service personnel.