'There was no intention to take advantage of applicants' – Immigration Service

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has set the records straight over the brouhaha that surrounded the sale of its e-vouchers for recruitment into the service.

According to the GIS, it was not the intention of management to cash in on the process because the process of recruitment was not peculiar to the GIS.

“In fact, that is the process used by all the Security and educational institutions,” a statement signed by Supt. Michael Amoako-Atta, Head of Public Affairs.

Below is the full statement:

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has taken notice of news making the rounds in the media about monies generated from the sale of its e-vouchers for recruitment into the Service.

Management of the GIS wishes to respond as follows:

*The Ministry of Finance late last year gave clearance to the GIS to recruit 500 eligible Ghanaians into the Service.

* Management immediately set up a Committee to come out with modalities for the recruitment process.

*Following from this an advert was subsequently placed in the national dailies setting out the requirements for the recruitment.

*The GCB Bank Limited was contracted to be the sales point for the sale of e-vouchers across all their branches nationwide.

*Sale of application forms is not new. This has been the practice in previous recruitment exercise since 2012.

*The cost of this year’s application e-voucher was reduced from GH¢ 100.00 to GH¢ 50.00 as compared to the previous recruitment exercise in 2016 upon the directive of the government to all Security Agencies under the Ministry of the Interior.

*Trybnet, a software developer, was contracted to design an e-recruitment system that will help the Service conduct a very free, transparent and fair exercise.

*To ensure integrity and fairness, the Business School of the University of Ghana was contracted to set questions for the aptitude test.

*The desire of Management was to give each eligible Ghanaian an equal and fair chance of applying to join the GIS and, in doing so, select the best among the pool of eligible applicants.

*At the end of the sales, a total of 83,539 vouchers had been sold out of which a total of 47,477 applicants qualified.

It is instructive to note that the cost of the e-voucher was to cater for the services of the GCB Bank Limited, the software developer and other administrative activities.

*The other charges were for the hiring of screening venues, examination halls, ambulances, contracting sanitation companies to clean up both the examination and screening centres, provision of food and water for the screening teams and applicants among others, across the all the 10 regional screening centres.

*It is not the intention of Management to cash in on the process, especially as the misleading story on social media seems to portray. The process of the recruitment is not peculiar to the GIS, in fact, that is the process used by all the Security and educational institutions.

*Indeed, best Human Resource recruitment practices will allow for a large pool of prospective applicants in a recruitment drive such as ours to select the best in terms of education, experience, physique and other expertise that will be required.

*Inherent in the requirements and process were restrictions to regulate and limit the number of applicants, such as age, height and even the period for the sale of e-voucher was also limited. Yet we had applicants who did not meet the basic requirements but went ahead to purchase the vouchers.

Management of the GIS therefore wishes to assure the general public that every money collected is well accounted for and will be judiciously used for the intended purpose.