The management of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) has directed all staff not to report to work starting Monday, February 24, 2025. This is less than a month since the new CEO, Mr. Eric Adjei resumed office.
An internal memo to the employees which was widely circulated on social media, mentions unresolved issues related to their employment, salary payments and some legal matters as reasons.
The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme is a rebranded and expanded Youth Enterprise Support (YES) set up by the former NDC government in August 2014. The NEIP was headed by the late John Kumah and Kofi Ofosu Nkansah until the NPP lost power in 2024.
This initiative offers business development support to entrepreneurs, including training, funding, and mentorship to help businesses scale and become competitive both locally and internationally.
Official figures from the NEIP’s website indicate that it has trained over 45,000 entrepreneurs, and funded over 9,350 businesses while creating over 92,000 jobs since its establishment.
Why all staff were suspended
According to Mr. Eric Adjei, since he assumed official, he has made several observations that border on illegalities and hence wishes to further investigate the issues leading to the temporal suspension.
He says that all the employees under former President Akufo-Addo’s administration have not regularised and were not on any standardized payroll. This means the staff were neither on the payroll of government, paid through the Controller and Accountant General nor on the payroll of the Office of the President.
He added that all the staff though their appointments were captured as permanent staff, have their payments (salaries) captured as allowances for the past 4 years.
He also revealed that the employees neither pay tax on their income nor their SSNIT paid for them.
Another irregularity he noted was that some new employees whose appointments took effect from October 2024 had a clause in the said appointment that should the NEIP wish to terminate their appointment, three (3) months’ salaries in advance shall be paid to them while at the same time, their salaries are being treated as allowances.
Mr. Adjei added that he does not want to be part of any future issues hence his decision but wondered why these employees would be quick to circulate the internal memo on social media with the caption that he had sacked them.
