NSS rot: Illiterates register for National Service

Investigations are underway to unravel how illiterates managed to get National Service identification cards to serve as service persons.
Some service persons have also been found to be either secondary school leavers or never entered any tertiary institution.
Mostly, young people are eligible for national service after successfully completing tertiary
education. However, during investigations, the investigators found out that some of the
unqualified service personnel could not write their names.
Some officials of the National Service Scheme (NSS) are alleged to have connived with illegal recruitment agencies to recruit the unqualified persons for a fee.
These unqualified persons were given identification cards and posted to parts of the country to do their service. Five of them were picked up by operatives of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in the Western Region while going through the registration procedure. The Daily Graphic has gathered that some of the suspects either used fake documents or
impersonated in order to be admitted as service persons.
According to sources, the five were sent to Accra for prosecution but the circuit court declined jurisdiction. “For that matter, we have sent them back to the Western Region to face the law,” the sources explained. “People are using all sorts of means to erode
the public purse but we are bent on bringing their activities to an end. These illegal acts cannot continue if we want to progress as a
nation,” they said. They said investigations were ongoing to weed out such persons from the NSS payroll. The Daily Graphic also learnt that fake labour recruitment agencies connive with some
officials of the NSS to register non-tertiary students. From the Western Region, Moses Dotsey
Aklorbortu reports that the arrested persons would be put before court on Monday, October 13, 2014. Meanwhile, six regional directors of the NSS have been picked up in connection with
ongoing investigations into the GH¢7.9 million scandal at the scheme. They are Nana Fosu Amankwa Agyapong, Eastern Region; Alhaji Shaibu Abiru, Northern; George Naanwinyelle Dasah, Upper East; Gabriel Nyorkeh, Volta; Michael Tottime,
Western, and Seth Asiedu, Greater Accra. Also apprehended is the Kwahu North (Afram Plains) District Director of the scheme, Samuel
Brempong. Twenty-seven district directors who were picked up on Wednesday, October 1, 2014
have been granted bail, with two sureties each to be justified.