The Ghana Police Service has stopped recruiting holders of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) into the service.
Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur announced this on Midday Live on TV3 with Stephen Anti on Thursday as he punches holes in a recruitment scam making waves on social media.
Though he conceded that the advertised scam outlined some "legitimate" processes used by the police in its recruitment exercise, some requirements provided by the scammers gave them out.
Any information on recruitment is signed by the Director of Human Resource Department of the Ghana Police Service, Supt. Arthur pointed out. However, the announcement by the scammers had Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur and the acting Inspector General of Police John Kudalor signing the document.
He also observed some flaws in the height requirement. The actual requirement is 5 feet 8 inches for men but the scammers stated 5 feet 6 inches; for the female the required height is 5 feet 4 inches but the scammers reduced it to 5feet 2inches.
In the fake announcement, the scammers said persons with 6 credits in BECE are welcomed to apply.
But Supt. Arthur emphatically told TV3 "we are no longer recruiting BECE holders".
He has, therefore, warned the general public to desist from paying money to persons who claim to be selling police forms.
"You can't stop criminals from doing what they want to do, what [the police can do] is alerting the public so when scammers go on scamming spree they will not fall victims," he pointed out.
"So we want to alert the public that this is not true, when it is time the police will publish it in the national dailies and police officers will talk about it in the media," he advised.
However, Supt. Arthur said though the police does not have any specific lead, it is working hard to track those behind the scam.
The matter has been handed over to the IT department of the police service to track those behind it, he said noting that no stone would be left unturned in the investigations.