Officials of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB), are meeting on Wednesday to finalise preparations for the payment of NYEP employees allowances which the ADB is to pre-finance under an agreement with the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment. The payment of allowances to NYEP employees was to have started on Monday by ADB branches countrywide, and selected rural banks, but it did not begin, apparently due to administrative problems. A source close to the ADB head office told the Times on Monday that the bank had not received the letter of authorisation to effect payment. "As bankers, we take instructions; we have the money and the list of beneficiaries, but we have not yet been authorised to pay," the source said. The Ring Road Central branch manager of ADB, J.D. Turkson also told the Times that, they had not commenced payment of the allowances because the head office had not yet furnished them with names of beneficiaries. A deputy National Co-ordinator of NYEP, Fati Seidu, said due to a hitch the banks are yet to be authorised to start payment. Ms Seidu said "the meeting today is to address the difficulties to do with procedures and modalities of payment". At the NYEP head office in Accra, a number of employees of the programme were making last minute efforts to process their identif ication cards to enable them to access their money. Ms Seidu said one of the employees did not have their pictures for the identification cards to be processed adding, "they are now rushing to do so, creating problems for us." The NYEP last Saturday held an orientation course for efficials of ADB, and are scheduled to have another one on Wednesday to finalise preparations for the payment to begin. However, she said while efforts are being made to address the problems, the employees would be paid their April and May allowances over the counter adding that "hopefully, we shall start paying them through their accounts at the end of this month." The Minister of Manpower Youth and Employment, Nana Akomea, told the Times on phone that the opening of bank accounts for 70,000 people under the scheme, could possibly be the reason for the delay in the start of the payment. The Ministry and the ADB on June 16, 2008 signed a memorandum of understanding to pay the employees through the bank's branches across the country as well as at rural banks. Under the agreement, the beneficiaries will open accounts with ADB branches in their localities through which they will be paid. The government will reimburse the bank through outflows from sources from the Ghana Education Trust Fund, National Health Insurance Scheme, HIPC fund and National Communication Tax. The new payment system is expected to solve the perennial delay in the payment of allowances that nearly stalled the programme as many of the affected employees threatened to lay down their tools. An estimated 70,000 youths will benefit from the payment arrangement with theADB. The modules of the programme include community policing, auxiliary health workers, youth in agriculture and teaching assistants to mitigate the shortage or teacher, particularly in the Northern parts of the country. Source: Ghanaian Times