No applicant was made to pay GHC4,000 bribe in latest recruitment exercise – Local Government Service

The Head of the Local Government Service, Nana Ato Arthur has dismissed claims suggesting that some of its officers demanded monies from a number of job applicants to enable them secure employment into the service in its latest recruitment exercise.

His rebuttal follows allegations making rounds on social media and other platforms alleging that officers of the service charged some job seekers as high ?4,000 to guarantee them jobs in the service.

According to Nana Arthur, the recruitment processes were so strict and transparent that none of its officers could have influenced the selection at any point in time.

Speaking on Accra based Citi TV, he challenged any person claiming to have paid monies to any of its officers to come out and provide evidence to that effect.

The 2019 recruitment exercise carried out by the Local Government Service saw only 2,290 applicants secure employment in the service out of 52,000 people who applied.

“Whom did they pay the GHC4000 to?,” Nana Arthur asked, adding that “if anybody paid ?50 to anyone in the service including myself, that person should come out.”

He explained that only one person was responsible for the generation of appointment letters at the Office of the Head of Local Government Service (OHLGS), making it impossible for any of its staff members, including those at the top hierarchy of affairs to influence the process.

“From my chief director, there is only one person at the OHLGS called Peter who generates appointment letters. Nobody can enter Peter’s office and I am the only one who signs appointment letters,” he said.

The Ministry of Finance gave clearance to the OHLGS to recruit 2,290 staff in January this year into the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in selected regions in the country.

Those to be recruited include assistant programmers, assistant administrators, internal auditors and procurement, budget and social development officers and environmental health analysts.

Nana Arthur indicated that following the financial clearance, the OHLGS placed adverts to receive applications and 52,000 people applied.

He said 40,000 of the applicants were shortlisted out of which the 5,000 were invited for interviews and 2,290 were recruited.

He said the successful applicants were asked to select preferred regions except the Greater Accra, Ashanti and the Eastern regions given that those regions were already choked with personnel.

“They have already been posted. We have sent those we employed to the various Regional Coordinating Councils to offload them to the various districts. They will report on 11th September, 2019,” Nana Arthur said.