Errors may have triggered delayed allowances for some YEA beneficiaries – PRO

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has explained some of its beneficiaries may not have received their allowances for the past 15 months due to “margin of errors”.

Some Fire Service Assistants employed under the Agency had claimed they have not received their allowances since January last year.

Responding to the claim on Onua FM Thursday, the Public Relations officer of Awal Mohammed said he would not entirely challenge the claims by the service assistants as there could be fundamental reasons.

These, he said could be attributed to mistakes in application and habitual absenteeism or lateness to work for more than ten days.

He absenting one’s self from work for more than 10 days amounts to outright dismissal but did not say whether that is the case in the Fire Service assistants’ situation.

According to him, some of the beneficiaries may have been affected by some verification exercise carried out by the agency to check “margin of errors”.

He said the change of government necessitated the verification exercise in order for the agency to check “errors which might have been unnoticed by the previous administration”.

Mohammed said as far as he is aware, all arrears and allowances of employees under the Agency have been paid up to April this year.

Meanwhile, he said plans are far advanced on an exit plan for close to 40,000 beneficiaries of the programme whose contracts will expire in August this year.

He noted there was no exit plan for beneficiaries at the time the Akufo-Addo-led government took over the administration of the Agency.

A total of 19,500 community health workers who are beneficiaries will be supported to attend nursing training colleges, after which the Ghana Health Service will absorb those qualified.

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) was established under the Youth Employment Act 2015 (Act 887) to empower young people to contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic and sustainable development of the nation.

Its objective is to support the youth between the ages of 15 to 35 years through skills training and internship modules to transit from a situation of unemployment to that of employment.