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Imagine GH₵70,000 mistakenly falls into your account right now, what a huge difference that will make in your life right?
Now wake up from the imagination and face reality. Maybe GH₵70,00 is too huge to imagine, so picture an urgent GH₵7,000 in your Mobile money account, I am sure you will certainly smile.
But while you were enjoying your imagination, it struck me; is GH₵70,000 not how much the managing director of a state institution receives as a monthly salary and GH₵7,000 entertainment allowance? Yes, it is.
Funny enough the only entertainment going on in this country is the joke we are making out of ourselves by entertaining such ridiculous perks for our topmost earners in a country consistently on its knees for foreign aid.
I would not be harsh as I prefer to keep my thoughts sanitized, but tell me, what entertainment goes on in this country for someone to be on these ludicrous perks?
Silence rings in the newsroom as I pen this after a heated discussion about the lavish allowances the outgoing managing director of the State Insurance Company enjoyed during her tenure. Whether Madam Hollistar Duah-Yentumi and others deserve this amount is another debate my ink is too light to contribute to.
However, listen. Please take a minute and listen to my GH₵70,000 rant.
If you’re reading this on Pulse Ghana, take a glance at our trending stories and you’ll find an article written by our in-house entertainment writer on how NSS personnel can ‘survive and save’ on a meager GH₵715.57 allowance.
Ridiculous right? Yes, she knows my thoughts about that article, albeit she has some good advice on there. Read that article to make up your mind.
Seven Thousand Ghana Cedis!
That’s close to ten times what an NSS personnel receives. Remember that’s one person’s entertainment allowance. By the way, that’s beside the point.
The point here is, that the current 2024/25 NSS batch has not been paid for the past three months.
Right. You read right. Three months!
An investigative report from the Fourth Estate alleges that the National Service Authority has over the years intentionally included ghost names in its payroll makes it even more mind-boggling.
Speculations that NSS personnel intend to embark on a nationwide strike have been downplayed, and battered by the political divide. They fold their arms, or maybe not. They wake up every day, struggle for public transport, and squeeze themselves into 'trotros', or ‘package’ in bolt or uber rides, as they slave for a meagre amount that never gets paid.
Wailing voices on empty stomach
“Service to the nation,” they say. But who serves on an empty stomach?
For instance, sources at the Ghana News Agency (GNA) have disclosed that hunger has whipped the service personnel so hard that they have had to table their cries and struggles before management to enable them to report on a shift basis.
That was approved thanks to their empathetic management. However, not many have had it easy like their colleagues at GNA.
One personnel who spoke on anonymity emotionally shared:
I have been feeling it, with this service thing that we worked for almost five months and we have only received just one month's pay. I just want to know if the government is thinking that we’re robots... We are doing service and there’s an allowance allocated to this. So, you come to work every blessed day and you’re not getting anything.
He quizzes:
I just want to ask; ‘do they think most of us that are from Oti Region coming to Accra to do service here – paying rent, buying everything, can we survive this?’ Should I say [it’s] wickedness or they’re just neglecting us, or it has been like this since.
He painfully concluded that he was trying his very best to stay afloat but the crippling economic conditions are already drowning.
Another personnel, who also agreed to speak anonymously, has the cushion of parental support but can already feel the weight on his shoulders.
He tearfully notes:
[It’s] very tough that you’ll be working for over three months and you’re not receiving any form of pay. We’ve received pay for only a month and even that one came after three months, it’s just not the best. There are others who can’t even make it to work, and they’re working at places where it’s required of them to come work every single working day. I’m just fortunate that my parents take care of me but what about the others?
He detailed how challenging it’s been to even purchase necessities as a service personnel.
All of these things you need money to do it. The reason why you’re working, which is money, and you’re not getting this money to do stuff like this. It’ll put a burden on you, and sometimes on your parents because they have to take money out of their pocket and give you. And you say you’re going to work to earn money and there’s nothing to show for the work you’re doing.
These painful narrations resonate with over 100,000 service personnel all over Ghana, who are being used under the guise of serving a country that’s robbing them of their youth.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with this system, and the fact that it’s become an acceptable practice leaves more questions than answers.
Hence, it’s very refreshing to hear the Minister for Youth Development and Empowerment, George Opare Addo, condemn this practice and express concerns shared by thousands of graduates toiling for peanuts, that never get harvested on time, across the length and breadth of the nation.
His assurance that they “will liaise with the finance minister so that quickly their [NSS personnel] allowances will be released to them,” shouldn’t be a mere populist politicking.
Be assured that this is not the last of the GH₵70k rant.
Our eagle eyes are wide open!