The Outgoing Director of Operations at the Ghana Police Service, DCOP Dr. Peter Wiredu has stated that the ongoing Police Recruitment Exercise would place much emphasis on digging deeply into the backgrounds of the applicants in order to stop people with criminal records from entering the service.
According to him, the Police Service was unhappy with the growing public perception that some uniform police officers either supply weapons and other logistics to or secretly aid armed robbers to carry out their operations for monetary gains.
Speaking to Savannahnews at the Tamale Police Park during the 6th and last recruitment session, DCOP Wiredu even though did not readily admit the assertion- he maintained that the Police had the constitutional mandate to protect lives and property, but not to become aids to criminals.
He indicated that the Police Service in its quest to recruit over 16,000 police officers across Ghana between 2010 and 2014 would not compromise with the defined police recruitment procedures whatsoever.
DCOP Wiredu who now appointed as the incoming Immigration Commander said that punitive actions would be taken against applicants who would show any criminal intentions either by forging their examination or birth certificates to deceive the recruitment process.
“With the kind of training we are going to give to the new recruits at the Police Training School with the period of 6 months, any of them who has bad or criminal behavior will be exposed before the end of the training”.
On the other hand, the Outgoing Director of Operations assured Ghanaians of a very transparent and fair recruitment without any tribal or ethnic consideration.
So far, similar exercises have been held in Accra, Kumasi, Koforidua, Ho and Cape Coast with the intention of enlisting over 4000 new police personnel in addition to the existing 24,000 personnel.
In Tamale for instance, over 500 applicants are expected to go through the recruitment process with a qualification of four credits and a pass mark in English or Mathematics in the SSCE or WASSE examination.
Apart from checking their certificates and heights, the applicants will sit for examination and also go through a thorough medical examination before final enlistment can be effected.
However, Savannahnews discovered that this year’s recruitment exercise does not favour the women, as almost out of every 10 disqualified applicants, 7 or 8 were women (females), due to their shortness in height.
About 12 of the disqualified female applicants (names withheld) who spoke to the paper expressed disappointment in what they termed the “inflexibility in the recruitment procedures”.
One of the ladies from Ashanti Region (name withheld) who narrowly missed the height measurement at 5.3 feet instead of 5.4 feet jovially said her height should not had been a hindrance since she was physically strong and had more passion for the police work. The required height for the male is 5.8 feet and 5.4 feet for female.
But she was confident of qualifying in the next year’s recruitment since she is still 23 years and the age limit was at 25 years.
On why most females were being disqualified on a mere basis of height, DCOP Wiredu said that the Ghana Police Service was much concerned about the issue of gender and expected that more women would get equal chance into the service, but stated emphatically that the laid down procedures would not be compromised for anything.
Interestingly, there tens of people with BECE certificates who had also come from all over Ghana, hoping to be recruited in Tamale irrespective of their knowledge about the required qualification.
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