The flag bearer of the NDC, John Dramani Mahama, is proffering a decentralised recruitment into the security services to give equal access to every Ghanaian who wishes to serve in any of the agencies.
The former President says there is going to a regional-based recruitment where prospective applicants would be screened by in the various regions.
John Mahama says unlike the status quo, his administration will provide a unified application form for all the security agencies for persons who apply to indicate the specific ones they want to join.
This, he says, will help curb the allegations of recruiting persons based on their political affiliations into the security services.
His proposition follows a recent allegation by the Minority in Parliament accusing the government of attempts to infiltrate the services with party foot soldiers, by offering 30 slots each to every parliamentary candidate of the NPP, a claim the government has denied.
John Mahama was speaking in a live engagement on social media Sunday night, June 09, 2024, when he made the comments.
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“As has been estimated, the Ghana Police Service alone, at its present capacity, will require additionally 25,000 new and additional personnel to manage the 24-hour economy additional working shift. But keep in mind, as it stands now, that the police service, even without the 24-hour economy, initiative, already requires additional staff and motivation to meet the optimum police to population ratio.
“But to solve some of the problems that have happened in the past, where we have allegations of selective recruitment and so on, we are going to decentralise the recruitment of the personnel into the security services, so every year we know the number that we are going to take into immigration and fire service, police, army and all that.
“We are going to have unified application form and so if you want to be in the security service, you fill that form and you indicate whether you want to go to immigration, police service or army. And then, all the services will do their recruitment but they will do it on a regional basis so we want every Ghanaian to have an opportunity if you want to serve in our security services,” Mahama noted.
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