We address you today with deep concern and a strong sense of duty regarding what can only be described as the biggest recruitment scam in our nation’s recent history facilitated by this government. The ongoing recruitment exercise into our security services has raised serious questions about transparency, fairness, and the integrity of government decision-making. Without a doubt, the structure of this recruitment exercise is akin to a Ponzi scheme, criminally crafted to defraud over 500,000 unemployed innocent Ghanaian youth.
Having widely made recruitment into the security services a major NDC campaign promise in 2024, over 506,000 Ghanaian youth responded to the government’s call in 2025 and applied to join various security services under the Ministry of Interior, namely the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana National Fire Service, and the Ghana Prisons Service. These young men and women, full of hope and patriotism, were made to believe they were being offered genuine opportunity to serve their country and secure a dignified livelihood.
However, the Minister for Interior, in a press conference yesterday to the utter shock of the nation, indicated that only 5,000 applicants will be recruited from this enormous pool of applicants. This revelation has left hundreds of thousands of hopeful applicants devastated, disillusioned and feeling exploited.
The fundamental question that must be asked is this: If the government intended to recruit only 5,000 personnel, why should the government over promise and lure over 506,000 unsuspecting young people to go through a costly and emotionally exhausting process?
Even more misleading and exploitative is the decision to increase the recruitment age limit to 35 years, a policy shift that trapped even more unemployed youth to apply. This move significantly expanded the applicant pool and heightened expectations among thousands of desperate but qualified young people seeking employment. Such a decision, was reckless, misguided, and intended to create the false impression of sufficient financial clearance to accommodate more applicants.
Let us also not forget the financial burden placed on applicants. The government through the Ministry of Interior exploited GHC220 application fees from each of the 506,000 applicants, resulting in the generation of total GHC111,320,000 from this rather exploitative process. The internet-based aptitude test was saddled with plethora of challenges orchestrated to frustrate applicants and result in mass disqualifications, without recourse to the competency of applicants who encountered palpable connectivity challenges and were timed out without barely minutes into the test. Today, those same young people feel misled, exploited, and abandoned. This failed exploitative recruitment process certainly cannot qualify to be described as a merit-based system.
The Minority Caucus in Parliament, cannot remain silent while hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian youths are being scammed and treated with such disregard. The integrity of our national recruitment processes must never be compromised. We reiterate the cogent calls earlier made by the Minority Leader Hon Osahen Afenyo-Markin and further call for the following urgent actions:
- First, there must be an independent bipartisan parliamentary probe into the entire centralized recruitment process for immediate and appropriate review.
- Second, the government must refund application fees of GHC220 per application form to all applicants ‘disqualified’ by the questionable recruitment process. These applicants should not be forced to bear the financial consequences of what appears to be a poorly managed exploitative recruitment process.
- Source: Collins Owusu Debrah