Recruitment into Police Service underway in Koforidua

January 13, 2011 Koforidua, Jan 13, GNA - Hundreds of young men and women who besieged the Jubilee Park in Koforidua with the hope of being enlisted into the Ghana Police Service had their hopes dashed when many of them did not meet the selection criteria.

Whiles most of them were told by the recruitment selection team that they were not short listed and therefore could not go through the exercise many of those who were short listed were also disqualified by their heights.

The qualifying height for entry into the service is 5.8 and 5.4 feet for males and females respectively and most of the young people, although had good grades, could not meet the criteria of the height and were therefore disqualified.

The outgoing Director of Human Resource of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police Peter Wiredu, said information in the dailies indicating that those who had not been short listed should come to the selection centre was unfortunate because the selection team was strictly working according to the procedure.

He explained that the procedure was that those who applied and were short listed were served with letters to come to the six selection centres across the country and would therefore have nothing doing with those who had not been short listed.

Mr Wiredu said for the Koforidua recruitment exercise, over 500 people were short listed in strict accordance with the requirements of four credits including English, age limit of 25 years before one could go through the physical checks including height and fitness.

He said the exercise was in keeping with the projection of the service to recruit up to 16,000 personnel by the end of 2015 to beef up the current strength and to be able to meet the UN criteria of one policeman to about 500 people ratio.

Some of the people who spoke to GNA said the Police Service was being unfair to them after giving the information in the dailies that those who did not receive letters should come to the selection centres for a second look at their certificates.

The recruitment exercise would end on Friday and those who go through the process would be required to write an examination in English and General Knowledge.

GNA