The Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has called for the refund of recruitment fees paid by applicants who are disqualified in the ongoing security services recruitment exercise.
According to him, thousands of young Ghanaians who applied to join the country’s security services spend significant amounts of money to purchase recruitment forms and go through various stages of the selection process, yet only a small number are eventually recruited.
Speaking during parliamentary discussions on matters relating to the recruitment exercise, Afenyo-Markin suggested that the government should consider refunding the money paid by applicants who do not progress in the process.
He argued that many unemployed youth across the country invest their limited resources with the hope of securing employment in the security services, making it unfair for them to lose their money after being disqualified.
“Many young people pay for these forms hoping to get an opportunity to serve the nation. If they are disqualified early in the process, we should consider a system where their money is refunded or rolled over to the next recruitment exercise,” he suggested.
The Effutu Member of Parliament further proposed that authorities managing the recruitment process could introduce a system that allows unsuccessful applicants to carry forward their application to the next recruitment round instead of paying for new forms again.
The security services recruitment exercise, which covers institutions such as the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana National Fire Service, and Ghana Prisons Service, usually attracts hundreds of thousands of applicants nationwide, although only a limited number of vacancies are available each year.
