The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Malik Basintale, has announced plans to raise allowances for beneficiaries under the sanitation module by more than 300 percent.
The move follows the agency’s suspension of its contract with Zoomlion Ghana Limited, which had reportedly paid beneficiaries as little as GH¢258 a month.
“When I took office, I swore by my late grandfather’s grave that no contract would be signed to pay GH¢258. That figure is unacceptable in this modern era. In any future contract, we will not go below the minimum wage. We are looking at more than a 300 percent increase,” Mr. Basintale declared.
He made the announcement at a press briefing after appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Friday at Parliament House in Accra.
The PAC’s ongoing six-day public hearing, from August 19 to 26, 2025, is reviewing the Auditor-General’s report on Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) for the year ending December 31, 2024. The report flagged key concerns including Ghana’s rising public debt, gaps in financial reporting, and weak asset management practices.
Mr. Basintale also disclosed that about 5,000 beneficiaries who failed to report for duty will forfeit two months of unpaid allowances.
“We have not discovered ghost names. What we found are individuals who were absent. Those at post have been validated, but those absent will lose two months’ pay,” he clarified.
He further noted that allowances for validated beneficiaries had already been credited to their accounts. Meanwhile, a committee has been tasked with reviewing tenders to select a new waste management service provider a step he described as the beginning of a “new chapter” in YEA’s sanitation module.
