Cash In Minister�s Bedroom

One of the several rooms at the official residence of the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashittey, was yesterday turned into a banking hall where employees of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) were paid their salaries. As early as 7am, most of these NYEP personnel, including health extension workers, community police and other ancillary workers under the programme who had not been paid for the past seven months, started arriving at the regional minister�s residence located at Ridge, next to the Passport Office, wielding their appointment letters. Daily Guide gathered that a day earlier, a similar crowd had gathered there to also take their salaries on table top and not through the usual banks, which had been the case previously. Hundreds of these effected workers stormed the residence to collect just a month�s salary from the accumulated arrears. For several hours, these NYEP workers stood in the sun in a long winding queue to enter a place some even said could be the minister�s bedroom since entry was strictly by invitation. It was not clear what culminated in the decision to pay them on table top and not through the bank. A similar situation had been recorded in Ho where the Minister of Youth and Sports, Clement Humado, allegedly tricked the youngsters into believing that their arrears where going to be paid. To their surprise and excitement, just around 11am on Tuesday, Mr. Humado appeared with a delegation dressed in NYEP T-Shirts with the inscription �Better Ghana Agenda� at the back, with �Pay All� at the front, yet not all were paid. The minister had assured them that all of them would be paid therefore they should exercise patience while he had a short meeting with the regional and municipal coordinators, Jesse Akumebu and Emile Amevor respectively, and other stake-holders. That was the last they saw and heard of the minister till date. The personnel then waited till about 5pm before the �Pay All� and �Better Ghana Agenda� T-Shirt officers attended to them. To their disappointment, just about 20 people were paid only a month�s allowance. Attempts to speak with the National Coordinator of the NYEP, Abuga Pele, and his deputy, in charge of communications, Murtala Mohammed, to ascertain what might have resulted in the anomaly, proved unsuccessful since the network operator said their mobile phones had been switched off or out of coverage area.