A member of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Peter Lanchene Toobu, has cautioned that Ghana is heading towards disaster due to the lack of standardised recruitment processes in the security services.
This follows the Minority in Parliament’s allegation of a clandestine and illegal recruitment into the security services by the government ahead of the December elections.
Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader, alleged during a news conference that all New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidates have been allocated 30 slots each to select NPP loyalists and supporters to fill positions within the security services, including the police and army.
Dr. Forson urged President Akufo-Addo and the government to halt what he described as undemocratic behaviour.
Speaking on JoyNews’ AM show on Tuesday, Mr Toobu stated that “Today, we have gotten to the point where exams do not even matter. People have not even applied to join any security services. You live on your groundnut farm, your cocoa farm, and your uncle calls you to bring your certificate, and he writes your name.
“They have given your uncle three slots to bring names, and gradually we are heading towards disaster because you are not building a national force; you are building a partisan force that would gradually come to do partisan policing, and finally it would affect our democracy negatively.”.
Mr. Toobu acknowledged the existence of a standard operating procedure for recruitment but emphasised the need for better implementation.
He explained that the committee first conducts an assessment to determine the required number of security personnel for the country.
“How many police officers do we need for this country? We probably need about sixty thousand police officers. How many do we have now? What is the gap? Okay? And you ask yourself, how many can we recruit this year? That question can only be answered by the ability to pay. You go to the Ministry of Finance, and the Finance Minister says, ‘This year I think we can only allow to take 2,000 because we do not have enough funding.
“Then you come back and say the Finance Minister has given you clearance for 2,000, then you come and say, let us put an ad out there. These are specifications; we need some doctors; we need some specialists,” he noted.
Mr Toobu, emphasised the importance of recruiting skilled individuals from various sectors to enhance the overall capabilities of Ghana’s security forces.
He highlighted the need for professionals such as computer engineers and doctors to join the ranks, arguing that their expertise would greatly benefit the nation’s security apparatus.
“After that advertisement, people apply across the country; it does not matter where you are from as long as you are a Ghanaian. You are qualified, and if you qualify, you are screened. If you are recruited, that is fair, but we do not have an advertisement.
“My brother and sister sitting in the village with all their senior high school certificates and all their degrees have not seen any advertisements, only to realize that a brother or sister they completed together is already on his way to training, and you ask the question, how did you get it? Oh, it is my uncle we called to submit my name.
“That is unGhanaian. It is uncharacteristic of what we are as Ghanaians. We do not do that in a democracy where we are to be preaching accountability and transparency”.
Source: myjoyonline.com
