Jobless nurses lash out at Akufo-Addo, claim he decieved them

A group of unemployed nurses have descended on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for introducing the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCO) initiative as a temporal solution to their joblessness.

According to them, they were promised a permanent job by Mr Akufo-Addo when he was campaigning ahead of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections and not the NaBCO programme.

Members of the Coalition of Unemployed Private Nurses are expected to hit the streets of Accra today, Monday, 7 May 2018.

The group is opposing attempts by government to enroll its members into the Heal Ghana module of the NaBCO initiative with a monthly salary of GHS 700.

President Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday May 1, launched NaBCO, which will employ, in this year alone, 100,000 young men and women to assist in the public sector service delivery needs of Ghana.

According to President Akufo-Addo, “NaBCO will be the vehicle to deliver one hundred thousand (100,000) jobs in seven (7) prioritised areas, defined as the following modules: Educate Ghana; Heal Ghana; Feed Ghana; Revenue Ghana; Digitise Ghana; Enterprise Ghana; and Civic Ghana.”

But according to the nurses, the scope of the NaBCO policy puts health professionals at a disadvantage.

They fear once they are enrolled under the programme, the Ministry of Health will relent on its efforts to get them financial clearance to become permanent staff of the Ministry.

Speaking to Accra News, a disgruntled nurse said: “We feel disappointed in the president because that is not what he promised, we want a permanent job, not this short term contract.”

Another nurse said: “We are picking up signals that when the NDC wins the next elections they will cancel the programme and so when that happens what are we going to do? We are scared and so we don’t want this NaBCO.”