NaBCo trainees, Youth in Afforestation receive outstanding allowances

Trainees of the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) have received outstanding allowances owed them for the past five months.

The nonpayment of the arrears caused beneficiaries to picket multiple times at the office of the NaBCo secretariat last month.

However, speaking to Citi News, one of the leaders of the group calling itself Unpaid and Deleted NaBCo trainees, Daniel Miller said they are hoping that their outstanding October allowance will be paid soon.

“They've paid majority of them but there are still some other few outstanding debt. I was being owed about five months' payment. They started paying the very same day we went for the picketing, in the evening. I received one month's payment that day and received three months' payment the next day. So it was left with one month, and they sent that as well last week,” he said.

Meanwhile, their counterparts under the Youth in Afforestation program of the Youth Employment Agency also say they have been paid for three out of the five months owed them.

The spokesperson for the Concerned Youth in Afforestation, Bernard Attoh stated that they have been promised by the Forestry Commission to receive all outstanding arrears before the end of the year.

“Last month, we demonstrated at the Finance Ministry. They were owing us for about five months. The demonstration triggered them to pay for three months and now it's left with the two months pay; September and October. The last payment was for August. From the response, they say they will pay all the arrears before the end of the year. So we are hoping that they keep their promises but if not, then we will demonstrate again,” he said.

Some unpaid Nation Builders Corps recruits last month picketed at the NaBCo head office over their delayed allowances.

This came after they petitioned their employer to release the allowances which had not been paid since November 2018.

Efforts by the beneficiaries over the period to retrieve their locked up stipends since May 2019 have proved futile, causing them to demonstrate several times within that period.

Similarly, beneficiaries of the Youth in Afforestation program had asked the government to quicken the payment of their allowances, which were in arrears of six to ten months.

This came barely two days after the government said it had started paying accrued allowances to some beneficiaries.

Like the NaBCo trainees, the Youth in Afforestation took to protest, after a series of similar ones which were held in March and August 2019.