The Minority in Parliament is demanding the refund of about GH¢113 million collected from applicants who were unsuccessful in the recent security service recruitment exercise.
According to the Minority, the large sums paid by applicants during the recruitment process should be returned after it emerged that the number of available positions is far smaller than the number of people who progressed through the various stages of the exercise.
The issue follows a disclosure by Interior Minister Mubarak Mohammed Muntaka that more than 105,000 applicants have advanced to the medical examination stage, although the security agencies collectively have only 5,000 slots available for final recruitment.
The minister also indicated that the exercise initially attracted close to 500,000 applicants seeking employment in the country’s security services.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, John Ntim Fordjour, criticised the recruitment process and accused authorities of misleading job seekers.
“Already, we have a national security threat and unemployment on our hands. You promised them jobs. You didn’t add any conditions.
“Then you turn around, you politically expand the age limit from twenty-five to thirty-five, signaling that there is more room and more access, more financial clearance, which was a lie.
“You knew from the very beginning you were recruiting only 5,000, and yet you did all this to lure half a million people, took their money, milked them GH¢113 million cedis and over, only to turn around yesterday, after you have knocked them out by technology and internet disruptions from the aptitude test,” he said.
Rev. Fordjour further called for a full investigation into the recruitment exercise and urged authorities to introduce more transparent procedures in future.
He argued that applicants, many of whom are unemployed youth, should not be made to bear financial burdens in recruitment processes that ultimately offer only a limited number of opportunities.
