Unpaid service allowance due to record errors

The National Service Secretariat has citing errors such as incomplete records and duplicated NSS or e-zwich numbers as the circumstances surrounding the unpaid monthly allowances of some service personnel.

According to the Secretariat, 529 service personnel in the Ashanti Region and 761 in the Greater Accra Region, do not have their e-zwich numbers in the database.

At a press briefing in Accra, Mr Archie Hesse, Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS said the new mode of payment through the e-zwich system, was designed to detect irregularities in the identity of service personnel.

He said in the event that any irregularity is detected in the records of a national service person, the allowances will not be paid until the identity is investigated and the details of the person are confirmed or corrected.

“It is our decision that payment must not be effected irrespective, other than that we would be compromising the process”, Mr Hesse said.

He added that the onus now lies on affected national service persons to go to their district offices and ensure that their details have been entered correctly; names consistent with those used in school and for the initial registration, one e-zwich number and their NSS number.

Dr. Michael Kpessa-Whyte, Acting Executive Director of the National Service Secretariat said there was enough money to pay service personnel, but the Secretariat always has to verify that service personnel are at post and have single identities.

He said service persons “should pay due diligence to the things that matter to them” such as directives regarding the payment of their allowances.

He also cautioned persons who relay their details to the Secretariat through friends and phone calls to desist from doing so.

“You may end up realizing that the wrong data was entered but this would be made known only when it is payment time”, he said.

In the records used for the payment of monthly allowances by the Secretariat and the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), there are cases of multiple use of National Service Numbers (NSS number) and e-zwich numbers – some service persons have the same national service number and some have more than one e-zwich number.

Many service persons also do not have their e-zwich numbers in the database or may have a wrongly entered one, while some have discrepancies with their names on the e-zwich cards and with their names used for initial registration.