Recruitment into the security services has never been so chaotic and rancorous.
All of a sudden this annual routine process of selecting eligible and willing Ghanaians for recruitment into these services has become a chewing stick in the mouths of excited ruling party politicians who pass scathing comments associated with persons who are oblivious about the ephemeralness of the offices they hold and life in general.
The sheer numbers who applied, some 500,000, speaks about the unemployment challenge facing us as a nation.
Unemployed youth without any source of income coughing out so much as stipulated fees to enable them to go through the processes is another evidence of the desperation this active segment of the population is facing.
The novelty of applicants paying to be considered to go through the processes is something which demands a rethink. It is a novelty which was introduced a few years ago, indeed not this year.
Just what the amount realised is going to be used for is something which Ghanaians do not know. Describing the fees collected from desperate youth as blood money is the truth.
Be it as it may, those in charge of policy formulation should find a better way of dealing with this subject so that in future we do not have to return to it in this fashion.
It would make sense if, for instance, such fees are charged only when sufficient shortlisting is done, not at the initial stage. It sounds scamming when vacancies exist for just 5,000 applicants yet the portal is allowed to take in 500,000.
In a digitised world, allowing such avoidable challenges to rear their heads is inexplicable.
Let us be a bit innovative in managing such issues so we are not regarded as persons who cannot think critically.
We have also noticed a certain level of hypocrisy in this whole drama over security service recruitment on the part of officialdom.
To create the impression that there is no room for protocol recruitment is to attempt throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.
Who in the chain of officialdom can vouch for the non-existence of such alternatives? The practice has persisted over the years and won’t stop anytime soon.
Those who passed the various stages of the recruitment process but could not make it because of the number limit have been promised priority consideration during the next opening next year.
We can bet that this too would be riddled with challenges. What happens to those who come of the eligible age during the next window?
The Minister of the Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, should adopt a better communication module at times like this when tempers are high. Claiming that some of the applicants were drunkards and wee smokers does not present him as someone with empathy.