Hey guys, I went out today for the first time since I came home, but it wasn’t to have fun. It was to process some files concerning my National Service which I’ll be starting in a few days or weeks.
I’m not sure if I’ve explained what National Service is to you before, so I’lo assume I haven’t and just go ahead and do that. Around here(Ghana) fresh University graduates serve a mandatory period of subsidized pay to the nation before they get a real well paid job. I say well paid because the pay during National Service is horse shit, especially in this current economic crisis with inflation and everything going on.
National Service Personnels are paid GHC 559($40.8) FOR A MONTH. If you were posted to a place far from where you live, you incur so much extra cost with transportation that it could wipe out your entire NSS “pay”. For those people that live far from their work stations, GHC 559 will not even be enough for transportation to and from work for a month.
I need to get back to talking about my day before I turn this post into a rant post. So yeah, when you’re posted to an institution to do your National Service, you’re required to take your form to the institution you were posted to, for them to endorse your letter, kinda saying that they “accept you”. Because they can reject you if they don’t need your service, so they need to accept you first before you come work for them. After the institution accepts you, you take your endorsed letter to the regional office for endorsement again from the regional office.
It’s a lot more stressful than it sounds, and that was what my day today was about. I was posted to University For Development Studies (UDS) Tamale Campus, which is outside the town I live. Living in Savelugu, I had to make a trip to Tamale (the town where I’ll be working) to submit my NSS posting letter for “endorsement and acceptance”. I was supposed to take a Taxi, but lucky for me, my brother had something to do in Tamale, so he was my ride.
For the regional office endorsement, you need to book an appointment before they see you and endorse your letter. I booked mine for 12pm. But as at 11:03am, I wasn’t even in Tamale and running late, needing to first go to my institution of posting for the first endorsement. Fortunately Savelugu is only a few minutes ride from Tamale, so we got to UDS Tamale campus at 11:20am.
We went to see the registrar, who endorsed my posting letter and directed me to the Faculty I’ll be serving at- The School Of Medicine. His office was in one of the fanciest buildings ok campus. But then again, relative to what we had on my school campus, all the buildings here are fancy lol. We were in and out of UDS Tamale campus by 11:41am because we were kind of on a ticking clock.
At 12:01pm, we were at the Tamale Cultural Center(supposed regional office), just in time for my appointment (or so I thought). What I saw inside the cultural center shocked me. The queue was probably the longest queue I’ve ever seen. So long that it was cut into three separate groups. When you first arrive, you join the queue of people standing, then as it moves, you proceed to the queue sitting on the left, then the one on the right, and finally the queue on the stage. You probably won’t understand what I’m saying from just my description, but I’m just trying to get you to see how stressful it was going through that queue. Lol. As I went through the queue, my brother went to handle his business(no pun intended).
Ultimately, the end of the queue was a table where you sign and submit your letter for approval. Just for approval at the regional office, each person paid GHC20($1.46). A fee we were not informed of prior to our appointment booking.
After all that was done, people that didn’t have an E-zwitch card needed to get one because that is the payment method of NSS. I was unfortunate to be among those people. I don’t use banks much, so I didn’t have a bank account until 3 months ago when some Bank came to our school issuing their cards. Anyways, I went through another relatively less stressful process to get the E-zwich card. There were many banks there, but I used Absa(Barclays Bank).
From the regional office I passed by STC station(a bus station) to pickup a parcel my sister sent me from Accra. I got a call when I was at the regional office, and I told them I’d come for it later. Those are parcels on the floor where the man is sitting and the room there is full of parcels. If you come to receive a parcel here, you show them your receipt and then after you’re given your parcel, you sign in that book on the table in front of the lady.
We made our final stop in Tamale at GCB bank and headed home after that.
By the time we left Tamale, it was 5:17. On the road home, we stopped at some restaurant to get some waakye because we were famished! It’s a place at Sakasaka I used to eat at before I boarded a car to school.
I got home around 6pm with hurting feet and back from the standing. There’s a good chance I might have to go back to UDS tomorrow, because I was supposed to bring my letter endorsed from the regional office back to them, but I couldn’t because they closed by the time I left the regional office. Tomorrow is going to be another stressful day if I have to go back again.
