Collins Owusu Amankwah
THE Vice Chairman of the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament, Collins Owusu Amankwah, has dismissed the Minority claims that there has been ‘clandestine’ recruitment into the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Ghana Police Service (GPS), and Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
The Leader of the Minority, Haruna Iddrisu, said the attention of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament (MPs) had been drawn to such recruitment without public advertisement “serving notice to Ghanaian citizens to prepare themselves for recruitment into these important state institutions and security agencies.”
According to him, information gathered by the Minority indicated that about 1,600 had been recruited into the GAF, saying “in respect of the GPS, the last time the public witnessed a public advert in accordance with the Constitution and the public service requirement and regulation was in 2017.”
However, Mr. Amankwah said the NDC Minority relied on “hearsay” for its claims and described the recruitment allegation as “superficial and hypocrisy”.
“The Minority Leader said he was told. He was told by who? For a whole political party to rely on hearsay is a very dangerous thing, to start with (sic),” he added.
He threw a challenge to Mr. Iddrisu to prove any provision of the law that makes it mandatory for the security services to publish their recruitment processes.
“So his claims on publication of the recruitment processes were false,” he noted and added that indeed it was true that there had been ongoing training of recruits in the respective security agencies but said they was “a backlog” of people whose recruitment and training were put on hold because of Covid-19.
“In respect of the Ghana Immigration Service, 84,000 people applied and out of the number of applicants, over 41,000 were shortlisted. So there is a huge backlog and for that matter they are calling them in batches.
“I don’t want to believe that this must be publicized or re-advertised when it is a continuous process. So his claims that the security agencies are indulging in shoddy dealings cannot be true,” the Vice Chairman of the Defence and Interior Committee said.
Mr. Amankwah, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia North, explained that the security agencies, particularly the police, had a recruit board which subjects recruits to stringent standard procedures.
“It is clear that without going through due process, one cannot be enlisted, and as the Minority Leader claimed that he was aware some qualified but due process must be observed. Who determines due process? Is it NDC or the Minority Leader?” he quizzed and added that it was the respective agencies that are clothed with the power to make determination.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House