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The 2014/2015 national service persons who are yet to receive their January- March allowance have accused the District Coordinators of the National Service Scheme (NSS) of deliberately delaying the payment of their meager money.

The affected service persons suspected that the delay was because the District Coordinators of NSS were investing their  allowance in some other ventures.

According to them, they could not understand why government will announce that it has released their three months (January-March) allowance, yet the money would not get to them.

Some of the affected personnel who spoke to Todayon condition of anonymity further accused the district NSS coordinators of employing a divide-and-rule tactics against the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA).

According to them, the District Coordinators always made sure that the district presidents of NASPA were paid their allowances regularly and timely.

“As we speak now all our district presidents have been paid. In fact they are paid on a monthly and timely manner,” the affected personnel told this paper.

And that move, the service personnel explained, was a ploy by the NSS district coordinators to divide the rank of NASPA and ensure that their district presidents will not be in a position to fight for their welfare.

“As a result of this tactics, our district presidents are always in league with the district NSS coordinators and are not moved in any way to fight for our allowances,” the distressed national service persons said.

Explaining further, they could also not understand why NSS will “secretly” pay their district presidents every month but decide to withhold their allowance for three months.

The payment of allowances to the presidents and coordinators of NASPA, the affected national service persons stressed, prevented the former to put pressure on the officials of NSS and National Security to release their three month service allowance.

For instance, they cited the delay in payment of service personnel working in the various public institutions within the Accra Metro District of the Greater region, noting that the action of the NSS was unnecessary.

They disclosed that: “We have about 4,500 personnel who have not received their allowance for five months, and also close to 2,890 personnel who have not received their allowance for six months since they were posted to various institutions and companies to do their compulsory one-year national service in 2014/2015.

“Our problems have further been compounded due to the fact that our leadership, NASPA is in disarray due to the interference of the national executive directorate of NSS.

“For the past three months, our allowances have not been paid and now we are in April. How do you expect us to survive?” the affected national service personnel asked.

They, therefore, called on the committee set up by the central government to investigate the matter and probe the district coordinators of NSS together with the leadership of NASPA.

And failure to do that, they warned would leave them with no choice than to hit the streets to register their displeasure about the situation.

They pointed out that they have on several occasions called on the National Security Council to impress upon the NSS and National Security to release their three months service allowances but to no avail.

Though the allowance is nothing to write home about, we have no choice but to demonstrate,” they affirmed.

“We have tried to settle issues with the National Security but they have been recalcitrant and so, demonstration isour next option to drum home our concern,” they indicated.

Currently, national service personnel receive a monthly allowance of GH¢350.00.