By: Henrietta Afful
A Governance Expert and Director of the Internal Audit Agency, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae has appealed to stakeholders to look for a more holistic approach to recruit people into the security services such as the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) and Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
Speaking on the ‘Breakfast Show’ on GTV, Dr. Oduro Osae said the system where thousands of prospective Fire Service and GIS applicants converge on recruitment centres and form long queues just to go through screening processes is excruciating for applicants and personnel of these security agencies.
This, he said, should be a thing of the past.
He said Ghana has energetic youth who are eager to work and therefore need a system that will pre-qualify applicants before reaching the screening and selection stages.
Dr. Oduro Osae said in other jurisdictions, online application systems are used to prevent large crowds from amassing at recruitment centres.
He tasked managers of the Ghana National Fire Service, GNFS, and the Ghana Immigration Service, GIS, to take a cue from the National Service Secretariat that has adopted an electronic system for its operations.
He called on the government to develop a comprehensive National Human Resource Development plan to address the perennial problem that applicants go through.
“Ghana needs a comprehensive National Human Resource Policy that will project into the future, the human resource requirements of this country, where we can get them from and how we fill the available vacancies we have in the country” Dr Oduro Osae said.
For his part, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, UPSA, John Kwaku Mensah Mawutor said outsourcing will help address the perennial concerns in the recruitment processes.
The Dean said GNFS and GIS need to outsource the pre-qualification activities of their recruitments to ‘well-structured’ institutions to manage. This will take away the burden of having to deal with huge numbers and long queues at recruitment centres.
Mr. Mawutor added that the security agencies can take over the physical examination aspect of the recruitment process after the pre-qualification stage.
He appealed to security agencies to digitize their operations.
Comments of the panelists come on the back of the opening of the 2021 application window into the Ghana National Fire Service and Ghana Immigration Service in Accra.
Thousands of applicants of these services thronged the Fire Academy Training School (FATS) at James Town and the El-Wak Sports Stadium to commence their screening processes.
As early as 4:00am, the prospective recruits gathered at the centres to begin Body Mass Index and documentation processes, among others.
The four-day exercise which started on Monday, October 25, 2021 is expected to end on Thursday, October 28, 2021.
Applicants who pass the screening test would go for an Aptitude Test on Saturday at their allocated centres.
