NATIONAL SERVICE SCHEME ON THE HEELS OF EMPLOYERS, DEFAULTING GRADUATES
The
National Service Secretariat has set up an Enforcement Department to undertake
a nationwide verification exercise to fish out any eligible Ghanaian who
forfeited his or her mandatory National Service but has managed to secure
employment.
The exercise is meant also to identify all organizations that have
violated the National Service law, Act 426 of 1980 by offering employment to
citizens who evaded the National Service. Any one, whether employee or employer
found out through the enforcement exercise to have breached the Act shall then
be subjected to the full rigours of the law to serve as scape goat to ensure
strict compliance henceforth.
The Ashanti Regional Director of the National
Service Scheme, Alex Opoku Mensah, made this known in an interview with Ashanti Today in Kumasi.
The
National Service law, Act 426 of 1980 makes it mandatory for every Ghanaian
citizen of 18 years of age who has completed a Course of study at any
accredited tertiary educational institution to undertake National Service for
one year.
The deployment of such eligible applicants remains the reserve of the
National Service Scheme. In the same law however, room exemption has been made
for citizens of 40 years or older who have just completed tertiary education
after going through due process. Similarly, persons who were qualified but evaded
deployment could also avail themselves for the mandatory National Service by
making themselves available.
Despite such opportunities provided by the law,
the National Service Secretariat suspects that there are many people who have
deliberately evaded undertaking the mandatory national call to duty.
It is to
stop ensure strict compliance with the law that the NSS has set up a special
Department to deter graduates and employers from flouting the Act.
The Ashanti
Regional Director of the National Service Scheme, Alex Opoku Mensah explained
no defaulting employee or employer identified through the Enforcement national
exercise will be let off the hook.
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