The Director of Public Relations for the National Service Scheme, Ambrose Entsiwah Jnr., has said that the delay in payment of allowances to some national service personnel is the result of some technical difficulties associated with the e-switch payment cards on which they are paid.

For a number of months now, national service personnel have been paid their monthly allowances through the e-switch biometric payment system in a bid to streamline the payment structure and stem corruption within the scheme.

“There is this other issue of wrong names and numbers on the e-switch cards. If a personnel makes mistake in writing his name or number on his monthly duty allowance form, the system will reject it because that is not the name in the system. There are situations where we have had to correct over three hundred names because of the mistakes made on the allowance forms.

“For example, if you are called Kofi Mensah and the last three digits of your number ends with 196 and you mistakenly write 169, the system will certainly reject it since it doesn't match with your name,” he said. Mr. Entsiwah has said that allowances for January and February 2015 have been paid, and those of March are currently being processed.

He added that the NSS failure to pay the allowances due some of the personnel is as result from late submission of the allowance forms by service personnel.

“We pay according to the monthly duty report forms, so if you do not fill your report and submit it in time for us to take it through the process of authentication, verification and validation, payment will delay.

“For example, I had a chat with the Regional Director for Greater Accra and she told me that about a thousand service personnel have not submitted their forms for payment to be effected. So, definitely, such a situation will delay payment,” he said.

However, complaints have been made by the service personnel that some supervisors refuse to sign the forms when the month is not due.

Mr. Entsiwah emphasised that supervisors have been directed to sign the forms for the service personnel anytime from the 15th of every month to enable them facilitate the payment process.

“Some of the supervisors are of the view that they should sign the forms only at the end of the month; however, it takes about two weeks for the process to be completed. So supervisors should sign the forms by 15th of the month to avoid jeopardising the system,” he stated.

He noted that errors on the part of national service personnel while filling in the forms are contributing factors delaying payment of the allowances.

Meanwhile, speculations are rife that the National Service Scheme is going through serious cash flow problems -- and that has resulted in the sporadic payment of allowances to the service personnel.

One service personnel in the Greater Accra Region, Salome Annor, told B&FT that she has not received her allowance since January; meanwhile, her colleagues have been paid that of January but have not yet been paid for February.

Another service personnel in the Western Region, Dinah Agyei, also told B&FT she has not received her allowance for February.

However, Mr. Entsiwah has dismissed such reports and remains resolute on his aforementioned reasons. “We have enough funds to even pay up to September. The delay has nothing to do with money. They are purely technical as I have already stated,” he said.