NSS Directors Tour Registration Centers
Every year, National Service Scheme (NSS) deploys Ghanaian youths 18 years and above who
have successfully completed accredited tertiary institutions to public and private organisations
to render mandatory service for a period of one year.
Following the release of postings for the 2021/2022 service year, the Directors of the National
Service Scheme (NSS), led by the Acting Executive Director, Mr. Osei- Assibey Antwi embarked
on a visit to all designated NSS registration centres across the country to acquaint themselves
with the registration exercise.
The purpose of the tour was to engage stakeholders and gather intelligence from the post-
deployment registration exercise to enhance the operations of the scheme.
Whilst the Acting Executive Director went with Mr. Kwaku Ohene Djan, the deputy Executive
Director in charge of Operations and Armstrong Esaah, Director of Corporate Afairs to Ashanti,
Brong Ahafo, and Northern Regions, the deputy Executive Director in charge of General
Services, Mrs. Gifty Oware-Mensah also led another team from the headquarters to the Greater
Accra, Central and Western Regions.
Mr. Albert Oteng Owusu, Director of Audit, visited the Upper West Region while Mr. Eric Nyarko, Director of Accounts together with Mrs. Angela Ohene-Boateng Angela, head of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation, toured Eastern and Volta regions.
Ms Jemima Anokye, Head of Policy Planning visited the Upper East Region.
Mr. Assibey who addressed scores of national service personnel at some designated NSS
registration centres across the country during his maiden working visit, stressed the need for
service persons to work hard and make a positive impact at their user agencies.
He said national service is meant to build the capacity of young people for the world of work
and inculcate in them the sense of patriotism, nation building and national development.
He urged them to embrace the service and exchange ideas and experiences that would make
them to be good ambassadors of the state” adding that their behaviour and lifestyles would
definitely influence some of their peers for effective national development efforts.
He further urged all deployed national service personnel to accept their postings as part of their
civic obligations and contributions to the nation’s growth.
While on the tour, the various monitoring teams used the opportunity to assess the
effectiveness of the new metric app for the registration process.
It would be recalled that this year, the NSS rolled out a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) security
feature called ‘metric app’ at all designated registration centres for the 2021/2022 service
registrations.
It is a facial recognition software which is unique, highly secured and easy to use to verify
applicants during the registration.
The deployment of the app is part of the innovative strategies by NSS to prevent the possibility
of “ghost names”.
The metric app is meant to speed up the registration process and also detect impersonation
and identity theft by fraudsters.
“We are leveraging technology in line with the President’s digitisation agenda to protect the
public purse by deploying multi-layered identification and verification systems. Our intent is to
make it costly for criminals to infiltrate the NSS operations,” he said.
Since 2017, the NSS has introduced many digital innovations including a paperless registration
system, which features barcode scanning, fingerprint verification, an online appointment
booking and online certificate request and delivery to enhance operational efficiency and serve
stakeholders better.
Mr Assibey Antwi said the introduction of these robust, self-managed and automated process
had since decreased long queues at registration centres, the frequency of human interactions
and the margin of human errors committed during registration.
The NSS management cautioned national service persons to avoid involvement in the so-called
“special postings” to prevent falling victims to the scams and activities of some unscrupulous
individuals extorting monies from them with the promise of reposting them to their preferred organisations.
Management has noted that these individuals have created WhatsApp and Facebook groups with moderators parading as agents of the scheme for such dubious and nefarious activities.
“The NSS management has launched a full-scale investigation into the activities and the
security agencies are on the lookout for persons behind this syndicate,” he said.
Also, the NSS management entreated persons whose postings have been withheld due to
authentication failure to exercise restraints and go through the due processes to be cleared
and ultimately posted to serve the country.
Issued by
Armstrong Esaah
Director, Corporate Affairs, NSS
