The Interior Ministry is undertaking a restructuring of the procedure used by the Ghana Police Service to recruit officers.
Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, says the move is aimed at to riding the Service of criminals.
“How do you have policemen becoming armed robbers? It means that the recruitment wasn’t well done. If we had investigated the background of these people, I am sure they would not have been recruited,” he said.
He said the government plans to make the service operate professionally to win back the trust and confidence of the public.
The revelation by the Interior Ministry follows an order last week directing some new police recruits to leave the training school to allow for a review of the recruitment exercise.
Over 200 recruits undergoing training at the various police training schools across the country were last week asked to go home for not meeting the appropriate qualifications.
The Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Asante-Apeatu, in a sweeping action since assuming office, sacked all 206 recruits for failing to meet the standard academic qualifications for enlistment into the Ghana Police Service.
The sacked recruits, who were undertaking their training at five centres, were believed to have been improperly recruited in a typical ‘job for boys’ manner.
Commenting on the order by the IGP, Mr. Dery said the order is part of efforts to ensure only qualified and dedicated personnel are recruited.
“One of the things we [NPP] in the manifesto is to make sure that we recruit devoid of cronyism and corrupt practices and to make sure that the people we get are qualified, properly trained, properly equipped and then we expect that they will deliver,” he said.
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