Stop Secret Recruitments Into Security Services – Minority
The Minority in Parliament has demanded the immediate stoppage and cancellation of the ongoing secret recruitment exercise embarked upon by the Police, Prisons and Immigration Services.
According to the Minority, the secret recruitments of persons majority of who pass as party thugs feeds into information making the rounds that the Akufo-Addo government is bent on compromising the integrity of the State established security agencies for an agenda in 2020.
Addressing the media at a press conference in Parliament, the Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Defence and Interior Committee and Member of Parliament [MP] for, Builsa North, Hon. James Agalga said the Police service for instance in 2018 started a credible recruitment exercise in 2018 but had the processed stopped and replaced by a shady and questionable one from the Akufo-Addo government.
“Sometime in 2018, the government of President Akufo-Addo announced that financial clearance had been given for the recruitment of 4000 Police personnel into the service. Accordingly, the service advertised for the recruitment of 2000 in the first instance, whereupon, prospective recruits applied through the e-recruitment model. The applicants, we are reliably informed went through all the necessary procedures including meeting the academic requirement of having a minimum of six credits (Maths and English inclusive), taking part in a competitive exam and going through a thorough medical examination. After this, the Police administration then compiled a list of qualified applicants in readiness for publication and the issuance of invitation letters for the commencement of training,” he stated.
Hon Agalga added that “the otherwise smooth recruitment exercise embarked upon by the Police administration took a nosedive when the government of President Akufo-Addo suddenly ordered the former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Asante Apeatu to suspend the recruitment exercise until further notice. Subsequently, a new list other than the list originally prepared by the Police administration was compiled and submitted by the government of President Akufo-Addo to the police administration for the issuance of invitation letters for training. The crux of the above narrative is that the recruitment exercise undertaken by the Police administration in 2018, following the grant of financial clearance by the Finance Ministry was truncated at the tail end and taken over directly by the NPP government contrary to its own commitment to stamp out fraud and cronyism from the recruitment of personnel into the security agencies.”
He said the effect of the Akufo-Addo government’s direct usurpation of the mandate of the police administration to properly screen and select qualified applicants for purposes of recruitment is that, several qualified applicants who had been shortlisted and were only waiting to be invited for medical screening have been denied the opportunity to serve their country and that only those connected to the NPP government in one way or the other were selected and trained.
Hon Agalga said the story is not any different with the Prisons and Immigration Services, saying “both Services like the Police have not advertised for recruitment in 2019. In the particular case of the Immigration Service, we are reliably informed that they have secretly invited mainly cronies of the NPP and taken them through screening and medical examination at the Prisons Training School for recruitment. In all, the Immigration Service is hoping to secretly recruit 700 junior officers and 150 senior officers.”
According to Ranking Member, the minority will ordinarily be happy to see the Police population ratio and the staff strength of the Immigration and Prison Services improve or meet minimum UN Standards in order to enhance our collective security, noting that an increase in the numbers of personnel within our security services will only contribute to our collective security if the recruitment processes are transparent and devoid of partisan political manipulation.
Hon Agalga said the NDC government in 2012 introduced the e-recruitment policy in order to bring to the barest minimum the level of human involvement in recruitment processes as a way of curbing fraud and promoting transparency and that, notwithstanding the success chalked by the erstwhile NDC government in that regard, the NPP in 2016 claimed it was seeking transparency in the recruitment processes into the security services but won power and doing exactly opposite.
He called upon President Akufo-Addo to institute measures to root out, cronyism, nepotism, thugs and with respect to recruitment Into the security agencies.