President ‘dupes’ NPP YEA staff; cuts salaries from Ghc1500 to Ghc570 cedis

About eight hundred New Patriotic Party activists engaged by the Akufo-Addo government to replace dismissed Beneficiary Monitoring Assistants of the Youth Employment Agency employed under the National Democratic Congress are seething with anger over deep cuts in their salaries.

The newly employed NPP activists who are mostly Constituency Youth Organizers of the governing party, the aL-hAJJ has gathered, are protesting a directive from the Presidency for their salaries to be slashed from GHC1500 to GHC570.

“We don’t understand why President Mahama paid Beneficiary Monitoring Assistant GHc1500 and our own government; a party we suffered to bring to power, will slash the salary to GHc570. Out of the GHc570, a monthly 5.5 percent is deducted from it as SSNIT contribution. We are graduates and we cannot accept GHc570 as gross monthly salary. It is either the president restores the GHc1500 Mahama was paying or we stay home without reporting to work,” one of the peeved employees told this paper.

Another NPP activist employed at YEA said “when I took my appointment letter, the first thing I checked was salary because before I was asked to apply for the job, I inquired from friends and I was told the NDC paid those who held that position GHC1500. We were told that President Akufo-Addo will increase it only for me to pick my letter and realized that I will be paid GHC570.”

Appointment letters signed by Acting Chief Executive Officer of YEA, Justin Kodua Frimpong, a copy of which is in the possession this paper, read in parts “I am pleased to inform you that you have been offered a Contract Agreement as Beneficiary Monitoring Assistant in the Youth Employment Agency with effect from 10th May 2017 to 31st October, 2017. You will receive a gross monthly salary of Five Hundred and Seventy Ghana (GHC570) cedis. You will be required under the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766) to contribute 5.5% of your salary as a mandatory deduction towards your SSNIT benefit.”

Independent checks by The aL-hAJJ revealed that the Mahama government indeed paid Beneficiary Monitoring Assistant who are graduates with first degrees, GHc1500 a month.

An appointment letter sighted by this paper dated November 1, 2016 and signed by then Chief Executive of YEA, Kobina Becheem, read “you will receive a gross monthly salary of One Thousand, Five Hundred and Nine Ghana cedis.”

As part of the Akufo-Addo government’s decision to dispense with the services of public sector workers employed under the Mahama administration, some 800 Beneficiary Monitoring Assistants employed by the erstwhile government have been sacked.