The Western Regional Director of the National Service has cautioned all National Service Personnel to desist from paying people who promise to facilitate postings since postings are solely done based on request of an organization.
According to Okatakyie AmanKwa Afriyie , numerous experiences show that personnel mostly become disappointed and waste their monies in an attempt to get posted to destinations of their choice through a middle man.
He added that request and requirement of the organization in question influences the positings, therefore though service personnel may try to manipulate to get posted to certain destinations of choice, they ultimately get rejected.
Speaking with Spice News on the sideline of the launch of National Service Week by the Nation Service Personnel Association, Accra under the theme, Sustainable Mining For National Development, An All in All Call, Okatakyie AmanKwa Afrifa said that it is better to choose an organisation that has correlation with ones area of studies to prevent mismatch resulting in ultimate rejection and inconvenience.
“We have had experiences where People come to the office to cry just because an organization has rejected them. Sometimes Personnel will share stories that show that they have offered monies to someone else to facilitate their posting. The worrying aspect is you will find a theatre student who is doing every thing possible to work with a mining company because many feel they could get the chance to be either employed and paid well, this is a challenge for the scheme and everyone has to be careful, People must choose organisations that match their expertise”
He admitted that though hackers have tempered with their online system at its inception but mechanisms have been put in place to avert the continuous occurrence. ” Also middle men caught will face the law”
He went on to caution middle men and Potential hackers to stay away from illegal activites around the NSS postings.
“For those who have been duping people, we are collaborating with national security to ensure that we weed out individuals who are perpetrating these crimes. I think the best we can do is to publish names of those who are caught in duping people”
The emergence of COVID-19 threw off the plans and bugdet of many organizations out of gear. Some organizations either laid off or cut down salaries of Staff to retain them, the story was not different for the National Service Scheme.
Speaking about the impact of COVID-19 on the Scheme, he lamented on the quantum of rejection which lead to double work by management by starting the processes all over again.
“Most companies reduced their intake which led to loads of rejections. This circumstance was worrying. Sometimes you can get the posting but the company might reject your posting. This is worrying and makes the work double” .
Emmanuel Akorsa Frimpong, National President of NASPA also spoke about the essence of creating awareness on responsible mining through the theme and the need to call on all Service Personnel to join the hands towards the fight.
“Per the theme and the venue of the program which is Western Region, we are trying our best to put spotlight on the increase in the illegal mining in the country and the need to find the best way of mining to protect the environment and create more opportunities, we also sensitizing our members to play a role”.
He also called on government to consider the impact of some micro economic dynamics on standard of living and adjust their allowances to reflect today’s reality.
“Incease in the allowance of Service Personnel to reflect the increase in minimum wage”. he said.
Story by Kwame Offei
