Some police officers maintaining law and other at the registration centre.Photo.Ebo Gorman
The National Service Scheme (NSS) has began a nationwide registration for more than 95,000 personnel posted for the 2017-2018 service year.
A large number of the applicants thronged the various registration centres to ensure early registration.
There was mad rush at the sub-metro district of the Greater Accra NSS registration centre as the anxious personnel formed long winding queues to go through the process.
Out of the total number of postings released this year, the Greater Accra Region alone received about 31,000 personnel in all centres comprising Ga West, South, Central, Ledzokuku Krowor Municipal Assembly and La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly.
The Executive Director of the scheme, Ussif Mustapha, conducted the media round some registration centres in Accra, to have first hand information on the progress of the exercise.
When The Ghanaian Times got to the Greater Accra Regional District, a number of the applicants, who defied the early morning showers, were spotted in long queues waiting for their turn to be registered.
Police and military officers had a herculean task controlling the desperate university and polytechnic graduates.
The paper observed that delay in the registration process occasionally resulted in verbal exchange of words between the graduates and staff of the NSS.
Some of the applicants who could not hide their frustration told The Ghanaian Times that they travelled distances to be able to register on time.
Victor Tettey, a resident of Accra said, he spent the night at the centre, but he could not register as at 11:45am, although registration started at 8:30am.
At the Ghana Military Police Club House 77, some of the personnel complained that their colleagues were molested by the military officers.
Briefing the media, the NSS boss said he was impressed at the turnout but urged the applicants to exercise restraint, explaining that his outfit would ensure every applicant was registered before the end of the month-long registration.
He said a number of banks were engaged to provide e-zwich services in all the 10 regions.
When asked if the scheme would explore online registration to reduce the long queues, Mr. Mustapha ruled out the possibility, adding that it would be difficult to go online because of the previous experience of ghost names on the NSS roll in 2015.
“It is going to be very, very difficult for us to do registration online because the idea is that we want to be sure that the people we are registering are the real people who are supposed to go and do service,” he said.
The agriculture sector received 2,160 personnel specifically for the recently introduced Planting for Food and Jobs Programme. Each of the 216 districts was assigned 10 personnel.
The public sector received 76,908 representing 84.0 per cent while 14,963 were posted to the private sector, representing 16.30 per cent.
Greater Accra received the highest postings of 31,000 followed by Ashanti 17,020; Brong Ahafo, 8,736; Eastern, 8,123; Northern, 7,250; Central, 6, 954; Western, 6,433; Volta 3,944 with Upper East and West receiving 2,107 and 1,657 respectively.
By Malik Sulllemana
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