Pay Nabco Employees On Time – An Open Letter To The President

Your Excellency President Akufo-Addo,

Thank you for implementing and executing the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) which is aimed at providing temporary employment for unemployed graduates, improving their skills to prepare them for the job market, improving public service delivery, improving revenue mobilization and improving access to basic public services. As I watched the launching live from Colorado, USA, I could feel the smiles you brought to the faces of one hundred thousand graduates. This is a step in the right direction and to justify that Ghana is indeed working under your watch.

However, I would like to remind you that these graduates will work for money to be used to pay for their bills and their general upkeep. Please pay them on time to avoid any inconvenience, as we have been seeing for new hires in the public sector. Ghanaians across the world will be disappointed to see a media caption “NABCO Employees 3 Months Arrears”. As part of project management key stages, you have effectively completed the initiation, planning and execution phases. The next difficult task is the monitoring and controlling. Timely payment of employees is one of the difficult tasks at that stage and Ghanaians are looking up to you to excel without excuses because salary delay in the public sector is a big problem in Ghana.

Availability of funds to pay newly employees has been a big challenge for the past years under previous governments because of unavailable economic base-money for payments. Also, the lengthy bureaucratic practices in the public sector is one of the major causes of salary payment delays. At this point, I would highly recommend that you employ salary accountants to benchmark on how the private sector employers pay their workers on time. A typical example can be found in the mining companies in Ghana. For example, employees in the mining companies in Ghana receive their salaries from the first month.

I remember receiving my first half salary from Tarkwa Ecobank in 2004, within 3 weeks after my employment @ Goldfields Tarkwa Mine. Life was good that day for a fresh graduate from school. I pray that my brethren who are yet to receive salaries will be made to feel same. Your government will not have any excuse to defend any form of salary delays at this time because you have more than two months to put structures in place to address any potential delay. If the private sector can do it, we have equally competent people in the public sector who can also deliver. Please, prove to Ghanaians that your administration will not follow the status quo and you are bent on doing things different. No more excuses!

This programme will be successful if the NABCO employees are motivated to produce results by maximizing productivity. Effective supervision and adherence to regulations should have key roles to play in this programme. Taxpayers will be happy to see positive results after posting these graduates to the various institutions. As you are helping these graduates to get jobs, train them to be hard working patriotic citizens to help change the current state of corruption, laziness and inefficient productivity in the public sector. Stringent punishment should be given to anyone found in any form of bribery and corruption to create a climate of disenchantment, despair and fear in terms of thievery and corrupt practices. These, I believe will make the programme successful as it will create mutual benefit for the graduates and the country. God bless Ghana!

Sincerely,

Solomon Owusu

(Citizen Vigilante @ Large)

Denver, Colorado, USA

+1 303 880 3237