The Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Committee on Employment, Richard Quashigah has rebutted the Ghana Immigration Service’s (GIS) defense for the sale of e-vouchers to persons who applied to join the Service.
About 84,000 people applied to be employed across the country but only 500 are expected to be selected to join the Service nationwide. Per calculations, the GIS has accrued GHC 4,231,850 as e-vouchers were priced at GHC 50 each.
As the GIS was widely criticized by the public for making available several forms when they in fact knew there was limited slots for recruitment, GIS Public Relations Officer, Superintendent Michael Amoako Attah mounted a strong defense, saying the Service did no wrong because the money would go into covering the costs incurred during the recruitment process, among other things.
“It is not a matter of Immigration Service making money from the recruitment exercise. This process started in November 2017 and it will end when we get the number that we intend to recruit and train. The sale of the e-voucher was going for GHc50,” he said.
“We were using facilities of GCB and they are going to charge us and it is going to be come from this GHc50. Every phase of the process, like today, we have rented the venues across the country and we are paying monies for it. We are paying for logistics, ambulances; we are also going to pay for the marking of scripts. We are going to pay for the software we are using and other things along the line. Currently, I don’t know the percentage that will be coming from GIS. We might even delve into our own IGF until the process is over. We have to also pay for cleaning of the centres as well,” Superintendent Amoako Attah added.
His statement, according to Hon. Quashigah does not wash as the budget of GIS covers the recruitment process. He posited that even though applicants of previous exercises bought forms, the practice is illegitimate.
“Why should we continue to take monies from these people who we need to work for this nation and for that matter, the good of the nation? When people normally try to find jobs, they don’t pay for the application letters they send to the various organisations which they are seeking employment… for a very long time we’ve been taking monies which I think is wrong,”
“These monies, when taken, are they well accounted for? The fact being that the Immigration Service like any other security agency in Ghana, has an annual budget and under that, they have a column for goods and services and definitely they know that recruitment is part of an activity they will carry out the year. Why do you turn around to take monies from vulnerable young people who are desperately looking for job opportunities?” he queried.
