The Minority in Parliament is calling for the immediate suspension and complete dissolution of the ongoing recruitment exercise into Ghana’s security services, describing it as marred by serious transparency and fairness issues.
Ranking Member on the Defence and Interior Committee, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, in an interview with JoyNews, described the process as a “major recruitment scandal” and demanded that all application fees paid by applicants be refunded without delay.
“They should refund, as a matter of urgency, everyone — whether New Patriotic Party, National Democratic Congress, or apolitical. They should refund and dissolve this biggest recruitment scandal,” he stated.
The Assin South MP further urged the establishment of a bipartisan parliamentary probe to investigate the entire recruitment process.
His demands follow disclosures by Interior Minister Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka that close to 500,000 young Ghanaians applied for positions in the security services, even though financial clearance was granted for only about 5,000 enlistments.
Thousands of applicants have already been disqualified following aptitude tests, triggering widespread disappointment and anger among many young people who viewed the exercise as a genuine opportunity for employment.
Rev. Fordjour insisted that the current centralised recruitment arrangement should be scrapped entirely.
“They should immediately suspend it, refund everybody’s money, and revert to a system where the security agencies themselves own the recruitment and provide merit-based policy direction under the oversight of the Interior Ministry,” he said.
The lawmaker also criticised the conduct of the aptitude tests, particularly the lack of real-time feedback and the reported disruptions that affected applicants during the examination.
He argued that applicants deserve uninterrupted internet access for the full 45-minute duration of the test and should receive instant, transparent results — preferably AI-generated — upon completion.
Rev. Fordjour pointed out that the current practice of notifying disqualified candidates days later via text message, often without clear performance details, is unacceptable and fuels perceptions of unfairness.
The Minority’s position adds to mounting pressure on the government over the recruitment exercise, which has come under intense public scrutiny amid Ghana’s high youth unemployment rates and expectations for credible public sector hiring processes.