The Ghana Immigration Service has stated that the relaxed entry requirements for recruitment into the Service this year resulted in the sharp rise in the number of applications submitted as compared to previous years.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Thursday, Director of Public Affairs at Ghana Immigration Service, Superintendent Amoako Atta also attributed the fact that thousands of forms were purchased to the love of Ghanaians for public sector jobs.
“For this particular recruitment, because we reduced some of the requirements, a lot were able to get in to apply as compared to the previous requirements. And yearly too, recruitment numbers have been increasing depending on the number of graduates that enter into the system. Last year we had about 34,000 applicants,” he added.
[contextly_sidebar id=”1yn6k3tci9jWVG2TLLewhVq0qlsxBmUY”]The Immigration Service received about 80,000 applications from people seeking to be enlisted into the service after it announced the commencement of the recruitment exercise in the last quarter of 2017.
This represents a rise of well over 100 percent from the previous year, which saw 34, 000 people apply.
About 47,000 were, however, shortlisted for screening on Thursday, January 4, 2017.
Meanwhile, the Immigration Service has stated that it will recruit only 500 people out of the enormous number of applications received.
When asked whether the huge numbers are unusual and a security threat, Superintendent Amoako Atta said he could not “categorically say it was” but added that “looking at the figures one may be pushed to say so.”
Despite the suggestions that the large numbers which gathered at the various screening centres indicate a worrying unemployment problem, Mr. Amoako Atta was of the view that because other security agencies including Police and Fire Services are also currently recruiting he was hopeful that a lot more will gain employment in the other agencies.
The Immigration Service Public Affairs Director further appealed to private companies to employ more Ghanaians in a bid to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.
“It looks like a lot of attention is on public sector employment. There are a lot of opening in the private sector but it looks like everyone wants to get employed in the public sector. So definitely recruitment drive in these areas is always on the high. So that will account for people pushing to the public sector or government employing them and government will certainly not employ all of these numbers looking at the wage bill. So if private sector will also open up and take up some of these numbers, it will balance the recruitment drive on the public side,” he added.
Thousands of job seekers queue for screening
Thousands of potential recruits queued at various allotted centers across the country on Thursday to take part in the screening exercise within the Immigration Service recruitment process.
In the Volta Region for instance, 0ut of the total number of 3,928 applicants from the region, 521 applied as graduates, 372 as Higher National Diploma Holders, and the rest are WASSCE Certificate Holders.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin