The National Service Secretariat has withheld the allowances of 8,000 personnel on grounds of fraud.
A statement signed by Acting Executive Director, Media, Mustapha Ussif, said: “The National Service Secretariat has paid allowances for 58,000 national service personnel in the public sector for the month of September, 2017 into their individual e-zwich accounts.
“About 8,000 others have their allowances on hold and are under investigation for suspicion of impersonation and disqualification from doing national service.
“Service personnel are, therefore, required to go to designated e-zwich service points to load their cards to access their allowances.”
The NSS further noted that “payment of the allowances was delayed as a result of the process of authentication and validation of all national service personnel across the country.”
It added that: “The exercise was necessary as it has exposed a number of irregularities. In the Ashanti region for instance, 22 people were arrested and put under investigation, nine (9) of whom are currently facing court charges.
“In Tamale, 57 people have been arrested and are currently under police investigation. National service personnel are to note that, in line with an earlier statement issued by the Acting Executive Director, all national service personnel who have not biometrically registered were not captured for payment of the September, 2017 allowances.
“All such national service personnel are therefore advised to visit the designated centres in Accra, Kumasi, or Tamale without any further delay to complete their biometric registration for their names to be validated for payment of allowances due them.
“Management wishes to assure all national service personnel that auditing of payment vouchers for October, 2017 personnel allowances have been concluded, and that, payment would be done immediately the biometric validation is also concluded. Management wishes to appeal to the general public to assist the Scheme by providing information to the security agencies on people who are impersonating for national service.”
NSS freezes allawa of 8,000 personnel
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